RWBY: Fallen from the Rise
by TimoremCordeNostro
Summary: "Strength is not measured by physical capacity, but rather by indomitable will." And that's what it will take for Cann to keep his power from controlling him, even as the mother of the Grimm knocks on the back of his slowly collapsing mind. Shall the warrior of Justice restore his life and family to the way it once was? or shall he fall to the evil within? Rated M for Gore Swear
1. Prologue

**Well, here's a remaster of the first fic in English and also on this site, that and it actually helped with my initial sleep issues and..also...when I was bored during studying, the original was written when I had..."bad" grammatical knowledge of English but now I think my grammatical knowledge can be considered above average, because the fact I can speak English means I'm better off already!**

 **Yes I will be modifying the story a little bit but I don't think it will be affected too much by it, now that we have ALOT more information on Blake's background.**

 **(And a few parts that I have theorised and am probably correct about because you can semi-predict the plot,** **I'm sure moviegoers know what I'm talking about, it's a common thing with people who are good at languages and writing I'm told.)**

 **New information will allow me to improve on the detail of the backstory as well as side stories, since I re-read what I've done as well as my notes and research, I feel that the chapters are a little short.**

 **This entire thing was remastered in the short time span of one and a half hours. Because my Tutor is an absolute boss and let me since it was relevant.**

 **Anyway! Enjoy :)**

* * *

 **Mandatory Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, just the OC's; RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum. (Möge er Ruhe in der Umarmung der Götter finden.) If I did, I would include a rap battle at some point between everyone, freestyle or not...I should probably do that at some point in the future...*eyes and grin grow wide with mischief***

 **I would also release a World of Remnant episode on mythology and religions in the RWBY universe, since as someone who likes studying people and what makes them tick (which is basically everything), I would find it interesting.**

 _Thoughts._

 _'emphasis,' "emphasis," or **"emphasis."**_

'Quoting someone in the story.'

 **"Someone who isn't there but is speaking to someone...like telepathy or something."**

 **Time-skips, everyone knows how much I love these.**

"Normal Speech and FUS RO DAH." **(Shouting for those of you who didn't get that. And if you didn't, shame on you. stop reading this and play Skyrim now, played it? Good, moving on.)**

 **(Making an authors note during fic.)**

* * *

The Grey box, as the man sitting in the centre of this room decided to call it, in the 2 minutes he was sat there for anyways, is as empty and as dull as watching grass grow.

Besides him, the room has two grey chairs and a grey table. The bare bone essentials that there could be in any room, anywhere. The man frowned and began drumming his fingers on the table to pass the time, finding the beat amusing as he thought up different songs, changing his drumming to match the beat of said songs, also starting to bob his head very slightly.

But he suddenly stopped this action as he could hear a door open close to the one he's sat close by, meaning his interrogator is here, and if his nose is telling him the truth, he's going to have fun with this one.

His boredom still wrapped around his face like a mask, the truth is however, is that in his clever mind, he would continue with a carefully laid out plan.

About 3 or 4 meters away from the bored man in the Grey box, General Ironwood is intrigued, or at least, he seemed intrigued, I don't know all his expressions look the same, except for the time there was a caption with his face stapled above it, it said 'Hi, I'm here to ruin everything.' Which I'm sure someone at some point has thought. **(No? Well it's a meme now.)**

"This is...interesting." General Ironwood spoke to himself as he read through the file of the very, _'interesting'_ student from Beacon who has been missing for a very, very long time and was arrested by Atlas security forces because of the following: 'Suspicion to harbouring and supporting a terrorist group.'

"Confiscated items include multiple weapons, some sort of extendable staff, two custom made katana with a complex inner working that fires pistol bullets with the power of a rifle, two custom made shotguns doubling as chainsaws and a very intriguing mask."

He looked up at the man behind the glass, he held a look in his eyes behind the boredom etched onto his expression, a look of knowing, knowing exactly what was about to happen, it honestly felt like he was the only person who wanted to be here despite everything his body language conveyed to Ironwood.

A Faunus if he recalled correctly is behind the glass window. One of his eyes red and the other, amber. Wearing a short skirted trench coat over an unzipped black leather jacket with a grey wool hood sewn into it along with a locket, not very formal, even though the way he sat said otherwise.

He sat as if he is in perfect control, knowing what to do, as if this is just a casual job interview or a game of poker. Hell, to the average soldier this guy would look like easy pickings, but not for Ironwood, because despite appearances this man is definitely a professional at the game of Hearts and Minds. He would not be fooled by anything.

He only wore one glove on his left hand, a basic grey glove with no special features, _perhaps of psychological significance?_ He thinks to himself before examining the rest of him. _Black jeans with no creases, none, not an inch, that showed one thing that most people who preferred order, like many military personnel, functionality. His boots, spotless, not even a dust particle exist on the black heavy duty steel toe capped boots with a glowing red X pattern on them._

 _A large enough stainless steel belt buckle with little to no shape to it besides what it was designed to do, the belt however could almost be described as a normal black belt, if it weren't for the glowing red double helix pattern._

The most interesting part of how he is dressed is the symbols that glow a faint red and give the effect as if they were moving. _Kanji? That's curious, weren't there some Kanji symbols on the helmet we seized to?_ He spent the next couple of seconds recalling his ancient history classes and analysing the Kanji symbols on both the mask and the trench coat. "Fear, Balanced, Bloodshed and Forgive." Ironwood whispered to himself in an almost questioning manner. _Perhaps something else related to his psych? Or maybe he has something else to hide?_

Another thing that bothered the good general to no end, is that the individual he's about to interrogate didn't seem to exist. No file contained his name, his facial recognition turned up no results, neither did his blood work, other than something strange that the medical staff here are still deciphering, or anything at all. This man is a Ghost.

Despite everyone knowing his name.

"Trying to analyse the subject General?" He asked in an almost mocking tone, he knew exactly where Ironwood is stood and exactly who Ironwood is, despite there being a one way sheet of bulletproof glass between them. After two seconds of contemplating how to process that question, he decided to enter the room.

The distinguished General sat opposite the cat eared prisoner, both locking eyes, as if in a brutal war of attrition. And the General is losing, he may have had seemingly more years under his belt, but this man however obviously has much more experience than he does.

That, or he is a brilliant actor and the good general highly doubted the latter. _Okay, you're good enough to make a spook I'll give you that._ He cautiously thought to himself as he narrowed his eyes.

The General is the first to break the long and cold silence. "What's your name?" He asked in his usual no-nonsense tone. His reply was to simply dodge the question. "My name is irrelevant for the moment, General." He said in the calmest tone Ironwood had ever heard in this situation, but the General knew that there was a teasing tone behind that short and simple answer.

But that wasn't what was odd, it was as if he would've spat on the floor at the word 'General', maybe he thought he wasn't deserving of such a rank?

 _Alright then, I'll play your little game._ He thought to himself, not only frustrated in knowing that he wouldn't be able to break this one, he's the literal definition of indestructible in this interrogation and as much as Ironwood hated to admit it, he has most of the cards. But that didn't make his 'calm and in control' demeanour change at all.

What really ground his gears was his earlier stunt and now, the fact that he has enough grounds to play ring-a-round a rosey with Ironwoods brain until they _'eventually'_ get what Ironwood wants or what this trench-coated individual wants. He hates stuff like this.

"Then tell me everything." The man opposite Ironwood raised an eyebrow slightly at that for less than a second, obviously not expecting this response so quickly.

"If you insist, then I'll tell you this story from the beginning, the relevant bits anyway, I don't want to bore you with details you're not interested in Woodie." He spoke with a small smirk forming on his lips. On the inside the General couldn't care less about a story, or the nickname, but it might give some insight on the current situation and possibly an advantage over the man in front of him so his decision was swift.

"Then I'll listen for the time being." _Much to my annoyance._ He thought directly afterwards.

* * *

 **5 Years earlier.**

Thud, thud, thud. Is the only noise one would be able to hear outside of the beautiful bird song.

RAWR!

Okay, apparently I was wrong. "Okay, we have its attention now!" A man shouted to his partner anxiously. "I _Love_ this plan!" The other man shouted gleefully in return.

Both of them bobbed and weaved between trees and branches alike, **RAWR** "It's getting closer!" The first man shouted frantically. "Can you two stop whining? Mute'll take care of it." As both the running men were about to respond, a black silhouette shot by them slamming into the Death Stalker's face.

Seconds after this, a girl rolled backwards and onto her feet, smiling at the now slightly defunct Death Stalker who was recovering from having something the weight of five anvils shoot into its face at fifty miles per hour without warning which is enough to make anyone dizzy to be honest.

It didn't get time to recover because seconds later as the two men that were running skidded to a halt, a shotgun with a rather large saw blade attached to it; shot by. Landing a perfect hit into the cracks in the Death Stalker's once flawless armour, the weapon carried enough force behind it to lodge itself underneath the skin.

To add insult to injury, the owner of said blade yanked the weapon in a certain way making it pull the trigger and what resulted, is the blade exploding out of the Death Stalkers head, leaving a grandiose hole where the face of the Death Stalker used to be.

The blade/explosive shotgun was promptly caught by its owner as he flicked it into the air by the bandages that tethered it to him, the material used to fling it at the Death Stalker now being wrapped around his wrist and up his arm again.

Said person looked at his two male teammates, bowing in a joking manner eliciting the other teammates to roll their eyes. "Well, now I know why Ozpin took you in originally, never seen a Death Stalker go down that quickly. Well done kid." The team leader said genuinely with a smile, he had a new found respect for the child, which became evident by his expression.

"Frames, it's nothing, Mute did the hard work..." The kid said with a nod to Mute. Mute however walked over to the pair of conversing men, since she couldn't speak, hence her nickname, she signed the words: "You did well, not many your age can do that, let alone plan that out." Mute gave him warmest smile possible.

This elicited the boy to rub the back of his neck with rosy cheeks to go with the action and causing the Mute girl to giggle at how cute he looked. "Well, not as much fun as I'd have liked but that was impressive you came up with that and knew that in the first place. I've never looked at Mute like a bowling ball before." The tech-savvy man with adrenaline issues said with an approving nod.

Also causing Mute to smack the back of his head as a retort.

"Thanks, Savvy, Frames, Mute, all of you, for everything." They all smiled and nodded to him before they each headed towards their objective: An ancient temple said to hold an ancient Dark Energy within. Spoopy.

This team, Team CRMN, or Carmine, has been acknowledged as possibly the best of their year so far. Each of the individuals came from a different background and earned their way into Beacon Academy, the most prestigious on the playing field.

Well it's that or they got healed by Beacon's medical staff and proceeded to beat the ever living daylights out of three racist individuals before handing over their unconscious bodies with a smile on his face.

You've got Savvy, a technical genius with adrenaline issues and hair styled in the colour of fire as well spiking upwards in that direction, engineering goggles keeping his hair pointing upwards. Wearing baggy camouflage trousers and brown boots along with grey body armour that also doubled as a jumper, a backpack filled with different explosives, Dust and other gadgetry.

Mute, who is the silent but heavy type. Despite being slim. Mute's semblance is to be able to control the mass of herself and the mass of objects she touches or are a limited distance from her. She wears a white, diagonally-buttoned, long-sleeved tailcoat that is grey on the inside, with black and silver trimming and silver cuffs which expand to allow for more hand room.

The trimming goes down the right side of her torso and forms a black collar, said trimming also forms the pattern of several different types of flowers. And as you may or may not know, she's a Mute.

Then you have the team leader, Frames. Frames gets his name from his Semblance which is a time-manipulation and speed hybrid. He slows down his perspective of time whilst everybody else's continues as normal, as a result, time continues at a normal speed. The fact that time slows down for himself acts more like an enhanced reaction speed of which he moves and reacts faster than any individual.

However, he has to react in time normally in order to activate said semblance leading to a lot of accusations of him being 'precognitive.'

He wears a long sleeved grey trench coat that gets more tattered and torn down near his ankles, wearing a shirt with segmented grey armour, between the tiny gaps of said armour you can see black lines that only enhance his visual effect. And finally he wears a pair of grey jogging bottoms, to not restrict his leg movements as well as white and grey sneakers.

And the final but also youngest member of Team CRMN is the Kid. Or, as everyone who calls him by his _'nickname'_ , Knight. Being a play on words, this individual has earned a reputation for being an excellent fighter with most forms of weapons and tactics and has figured out styles and combat usage for many different weapons he's never seen or used before in under a minute, scariest part being he also knows how to build it in under 10 seconds, or so they say.

Being known for his weapon _'_ _hobbies'_ is one reason he's called Knight.

He also has his nickname for being someone who's known for sneaking around at night and stealing the fish from the kitchen, which no one has caught him doing yet, but everyone knows it's him because whenever there is fish in the cafeteria, guess who's the first to take it all. He wears an armless black body warmer with a grey hood sown into it along with a grey backpack that looks kind of like a pod, to hold most of his weapons and equipment.

On his lower half sits pure white jogging bottoms with black stripes going down it and black plimsolls with red lines going down across them. A barely visible chain leads to a locket being hidden behind his body warmer, the observant can catch it quickly.

As they arrived at their destination, without disturbing anymore Death Stalkers along the way, instead having to deal with a few Ursa, Savvy is the first to speak. "Well, that's...big." For once he wasn't joking, this temple, if you could call it a temple at all, is massive.

The entrance is a good eight stories tall and look like they're entering the mouth of a dragon based Grimm; they couldn't even see the rest of the temple behind the entrance because of thick vine coverage of the area.

"Carmine, fall out." Frames announced, now bearing his no nonsense tone of voice, everyone drew their weapons whether it be projectile or in Mute's particular case, hands **(Knuckledusters.)** and feet. Each of them took on a defensive stance slowly moving deeper into the temple; one of them has a more concerned and anxious expression than the others. "Hey, Kid, you okay?" Savvy asked him.

"Fine, but whatever is here is definitely Dark in origin, I haven't felt my semblance go this crazy, well, ever, keep your guard up." He says with a slight tone of worry. Literally seconds later, a swarm of pigeon sized Nevermores flew straight at them. Everyone besides the kid attempting to hack, slash and punch them even though they seemingly ignored them. He raised an eyebrow at the others with crossed arms and an amused smirk.

"Oh don't even go there, you flinched to!" Savvy attempted to defend himself only for the kid to toss each of them a glowing dust crystal which they each caught with ease. "There, now you'll be able to see a bit better." The kid said, seemingly ignoring the sentence from Savvy.

"What about you?" Frames asked, causing Mute to tap his shoulder. Getting Frame's attention, she signed. "He's a cute kitty Faunus; he should be able to see in the dark." Which caused Frames to close his eyes with a short sigh of embarrassment that he forgot this simple fact.

"I saw that Mute." The kid said calmly in an almost teasing tone to his voice despite being younger than his teammates as he walked past the pair. Mute's face now lit up like a Christmas tree, they pressed forwards, deeper, into the dark confines of the now ancient and overly creepy temple.

Through the eyes of a normal person, the inner sanctum of the temple would just appear to be pitch black, a place that would cause a feeling of uneasiness and anxiety, like earlier at the entrance. But through the eyes of this Faunus, it's a place of historical beauty, the architecture, the carvings on the walls, everything is completely foreign, yet he felt completely at home. He almost felt excited to analyse everything in this temple.

Almost.

"Kid, we can't see anything, mind giving us a layout-" As he says this, he's rudely interrupted by walking into a wall causing the Faunus he was talking to, to laugh his head off along with the rest of the team, their laughs would be the last sounds he'd hear from his friends for a long while.

"Okay ha-ha very funny, tell me where to walk I can barely see two feet in front of me." Frames said in slight annoyance with a smirk of his own. No response was received. "Kid? Guys?" Nothing. He draws his giant grey scythe with a deep hum of disapproval, his instincts telling him to be ready for anything...until the glowing dust crystal attached to him started to flicker and die out.

"Nononononono." He felt anxiety build up in his chest as his guard solidified just a little as he couldn't see. "Well...fuck me right?" He chuckled nervously to himself, trying and failing to calm himself at least a little, he couldn't even scream at the tooth and claw he saw next.

Whilst the others were starting to go mad in the enshrouding dark, a single Faunus is in a state he'd never felt before, _**pure terror.** _ His body is trembling and all he could see on a pedestal in front of him, is his younger sister, not just sitting there, slumped against the wall, her body lax and eyes closed, ears and hair black as the night he last saw her. She was also bloody, everywhere, with a sad smile on her face.

From that point forwards, everything inside him, his smart-ass attitude, his totally non-obsessive addiction to weapons and fish, all disappeared as his haunting past began being brought to the forefront of his mind and ground everything he was down to a fine powder and disposing of it like yesterdays garbage.

The edges of his vision became black, his hands and legs are tense and sweaty, slowly clenching into fists, he slowly walked towards the body, tears threatening to leave his eyes, he desperately hoped that what he was seeing isn't real, he knelt and put a hand on her cold face, just as smooth as his memory, but not nearly enough to hide the feeling of a corpse he knows all too well.

Suddenly her eyes opened and a blade rush towards his face, he didn't move, why would he? In a state of terror and shock, his reflexes are reduced to murmurs of mercy in a war he can't win. Everything became black, he couldn't feel or move anything, yet his mind bled sanity more than a cut artery as his poor little soul struggled to process what he saw.

 _It couldn't be real, it isn't real, it will never be real!_ He may as well have screamed the words, because no one can hear him, no can see him in a curled up ball of tears. A Pitiful example of a Hunter.

After an eternity of darkness and Entropy, he slowly stood back up, gaining the courage to open his eyes, to see a black crystal. "Are you the cause for all this?" He looks at his hands, covered in the blood of others, not being able to see the blood by his gaping jaw, but he doesn't even seem fazed by anything anymore.

He slowly walked up a set of stairs to reach the pedestal, it took him several minutes to pick up the crystal, there was nothing intricate about it, he couldn't see his own reflection, and instead he saw a woman, a woman that looked as if she were a Grimm, her stare burning through his soul.

He felt his entire body start to heat up and tear itself apart from the inside out, it felt almost like he had drank a cold glass of water and he could feel it flow throughout his body before it heated to a boiling point and replaced his blood with it.

From an outside perspective, it would almost seem nothing were happening, until they looked at his face and saw his right eye, now instead of an amber, it is now a deep blood red, you could tell that he was no longer the same 'Kid' as before, there was no longer any Fear, any emotion, just a boy with a singular goal and purpose, what it is he now seeks? We shall find out soon enough.

As everything began to clear up not only with his vision but also his mind, despite it being on a crumbling verge of ruin. He turned around to see three people sprawled on the floor, deep tooth and claw wounds all over them. **"This is the price for what I gift you with."** The voice echoed in his head. At face value, it would seem that he isn't reacting at all, but really, inside, the cracks are spreading like wildfire.

"Then the price was too high..." He whispered to himself. **"Would you prefer to live without any of the power I have imbued you with?"** The voice echoed again. "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!" He screamed at the voice inside his fractured mind, the sounds of shouting echoing on for the longest of times.

 **"I have given you the power to match and surpass the best Hunters and Huntresses that have ever existed, possibly an equal to a maiden, or even myself."** The voice is all too simple to decipher, commanding, confident, sinister and definitely female; he didn't know what she meant by a maiden, he didn't care. Despite his original goal of becoming a Hunter...and more.

"And what would you want in return?" He asked in a voice of quiet anger. **"Smart one, In return, you serve me with whatever I deem to be your purpose, otherwise you're free to be yourself."** He can hear the smile behind her voice, she thinks she's won.

"And what if I disobey?" Silence reigned but quickly ended.

"Oh, ohhhhhhh, I get it, you can't make me do anything you want, can you?" At that he almost made a laugh that would make people think he's been driven mad and at this point, he wouldn't know the difference.

"I'll tell you what, resurrect my friends then maybe, just maybe, I'll work _With_ you." His tone is cold and agitated, ready to tear anyone who comes near him to pieces. **"I shall not."** Now she sounded a bit more bitter obviously expecting him to instantly reply.

"Then don't expect me to take orders from a voice in my head." He practically growled, looking upon the corpses once again, he slowly walked to and knelt at the side of Mute's body and examined her, even if it was still dark, it made no difference to a damaged child looking for answers, the lines have been blurred.

"Deep claw wounds, no blood in the body and none on the surrounding environment." He's on the verge of tears at this point, but this is something he needed to do, for the sake of his sanity he had to.

Using his claws he cut around different wounds and started noticing something, he began to tremble as he examined the bites on the body as well as the claws, each wound seemed fresh, but the body had seemingly been decomposing faster, however long he's been here.

Muscle tissue is brown and starting to go gunky, skin is pale and clammy also tight on the bones and muscle showing a lack of moisture, starting to break down in some areas of the body, the eyes, they no longer held colour, just a cloudy mixture of grey and white. "Body is already showing signs of decomposition, even if death occurred no less than a few minutes ago." He said to himself solemnly as tears dripped silently to the clothes of one of his beloved friends.

Unfortunately, he deduced that each of them were killed by an enraged Faunus, the claw wounds and bites matched his own...leading him to believe that:

"I killed them?..."

It was as if he were questioning reality itself when he said that. His trembling hands are now shaking like two tectonic plates slamming into each other; he felt the beginnings of a panic attack begin to awaken in his chest.

"C-c-calm..." The words were barely uttered as he was too shaken to do anything.

No matter how much you put yourself through every scenario, no matter how much pain you go through, nothing compares to loosing what you love. And watching helplessly as they die in front of your eyes.

He began to hyperventilate; he pushed himself into a corner and hugged his knees attempting to avert his eyes from the corpses of his once alive friends, only to see them every time he closed his eyes.

No child should have to go through that, none, but this one is, all alone, spouting different words in the many languages hes been educated of, all the while rocking himself and trembling, the tears beginning to form a small puddle on the floor, every so often changing to a crimson colour in his vision.

His trembling fists began shaking faster and faster, but this time out of anger, and luckily for him, he'd have something to take it out on. A pack of Beowolves came wandering into the temple, no doubt sensing the negativity coming from the small Faunus child.

Only now he isn't a child, not anymore, now he's angry, his vision is clear, his hands steady and feet swift, it's no longer dark and the Beowolf Alpha is the first thing he saw when waking from his rebirth into a world filled with nothing but monsters.

Going so fast that he would've made the Flash himself blush from jealousy, he ran just under the head of the said Beowolf Alpha and with surprising strength, slammed the Beowolves' head into the floor, whilst simultaneously climbing onto its back.

Punch after punch, he proceeded to pummel it to a black stain on the floor, even after the Alpha Beowolf had died, he continued punching the black mess now firmly implanted into the floor, anger painting his face a different colour as he lets everything out in a beautiful crescendo of violence.

After around 5 seconds of roars coming from the Beowolves, two eventually charged, only for one of them to receive the dust bullet equivalent of a 50. Cal right between the eyes and the other had the top half of its skull cut off, both of said Beowolves died instantly.

What the other, younger Beowolves hadn't realised by charging at the young Faunus, is that he was very much aware that they were about to try and take his head and that this is only going to make him angrier.

Holding his single handed Katana in one hand, with a complex pistol built into the grip he started chuckling madly. "Nothing else matters from now on." He took out the shotgun from its holster, saw blade under the barrel gleaming and dripping with similar blood that coated his dormant claws, ready for a fresh kill as he revved it in anticipation.

A Beowolf attempted to swipe at him only to have its paw cut off and head explode, brain matter and skull fragments flying everywhere due to the close proximity of the shotgun barrel to under the jaw of the beast.

He slowly turned around to face the rest of them. _Four down, six to go. Not enough to kill._ He thought to himself while with an angrier tone, an almost Joker level grin forming as another Beowolf charged only to be used as a springboard for him to land on top of another Beowolf.

"Try harder!" he taunted, promptly letting out his own roar as he cut off the Beowolfs head that he was standing on before it could process the young Faunus's existence on its head.

Hopping off the slowly disintegrating corpse of the Beowolf, he proceeded to dodge several claw attacks from his new playmates.

After a third dodge, which came uncomfortably close to shredding the skin off his chest, he dropped on to his back and slid backwards between the legs of the Beowolf behind him.

Raising his leg a little early to flip himself to his feet, he ended up kicking the said Beowolf straight in the batteries causing it to give off a surprised yelp, as it hunched over from the pain, directly at the level the kids face would've been, it received the claw swipe it wasn't supposed to, leading it to now no longer have half of its lower jaw.

However he kept his composure and redoubled his efforts. He ended up giving an anger filled mercy killing for the now _'crippled'_ Beowolf by running up its back and obliterating its head with a shotgun blast.

But he didn't expect the Beowolf that was trying to hit him to learn and predict his actions so quickly. The young Faunus didn't see the Beowolfs clawed hand in time and was promptly thwacked into the nearest wall, with a claw wound on his chest since his Aura had gone down at some point. Picking himself up as the remaining Beowolves began to surround him; he proceeded to use something he hadn't used yet.

SLICE, two of the remaining Beowolves had been cut in half by an unexpected use of his shotgun/saw, there's a reason why this weapon in particular is dubbed as a Variant Ballistic Chain Saw, he could launch it like a whip and have more fun than a lumberjack. He stared down the last Beowolf, a smaller one, meaning it was younger.

It attempted to leap at him only for its legs to be cut off, causing a yelp of surprise and a large thud as the Beowolf landed on its own face.

He proceeded to take about ten minutes of his time to make the moments before its death as excruciatingly painful as possible, gaining strength from the Fear and pained growls it practically radiated.

With the entire Beowolf pack dead, he stumbled over to the bodies of his old teammates and said a quick prayer. "Finden Sie Ruhe in der Umarmung der Götter." He whispered silently, he never noticed that it was now light inside the temple, taking what equipment, food and other supplies they had that were still intact.

Keeping pressure on the bleeding wounds on his chest, he walked over to the only exit there is, the way he came in. As he reached the entrance once again, he stopped and looked out into the forest before him. "I'm sorry Oz...I won't be coming back." He said to himself with a half sigh and a tone of sadness.

His only friends were dead, he killed them, he tore them to pieces! Even if he doesn't remember, he still killed them; the evidence was there, guilt and regret spread in his mind as he collapsed to his knees thinking back to what he saw back in the temple, before a new goal popped in his mind through the raging storm. Yet he ignored it.

He stood with a high head and began walking.

"Nothing else matters." Were his final words before he disappeared into the forest clinging onto a black crystal, as if for dear life.

* * *

 **I'll be honest, I liked this work in particular not because the main character looks badass and edgy (not at all like Timmy's First Fanfiction) but the way I've structured the story, to some it might be confusing, but in my opinion it's clear. Sure I've killed off a few characters with potential early on in the story but eh, I kill people all the time.**

 **That came out wrong.**

 **Anyway! From after this chapter is the content I posted however long ago when my understanding of writing English was literally the equivalent of a stereotypical Frenchman impression by Jeremy Clarkson. I might update the rest of it and continue with the story depending on your guys opinion, let me know, I'd love to write more of this!**

 **So again, thank you so much for reading! If you liked it, punch that Favourite button so hard your computer shatters! (Not literally) But if you were 'ehh' over it but still want to see me write more be sure to let me know how I can improve by posting a review and Following to keep you updated, I reply to all of my reviews and all constructive criticism or feedback in general is appreciated, even ones where you say "It's shit." and walk off, I don't care, don't like it, don't read it, this isn't a prison.**

 **And with that! May your foes be strong enough to keep you sharp. BYE!**


	2. From a Fire to a Cinder

**Hellooooo there ladies and germs I am TimoremCordeNostro and welcome back to some more RWBY: Fallen from the Rise! A massive thank you to everyone who has given this Fic a chance, I hope I can live up to your expectations, if not then tell me what I can do better and I shall try!**

 **This chapter contains fluffiness to kick off the chain of events that take place later in the years to come for the story, at the same time it shoves hints in your face as to what may or may not happen, I look forward to hearing your theories. *insert evil laugh here***

 **Billmastergamin115 - I completely agree with the brutal part, thank you sir!**

 **Another quick note, (As explained later in this chapter.) Cann is pronounced _Sh-awn or Sha-aan_ depending on where you're from and that sort of thing.**

 **As always constructive criticism is always welcome, this was written with my brilliant Beta-reader and co-writer Billmastergamin115, so a big special thanks to meine Freund!**

 **WARNING: - This Fic contains scenes that young people may find disturbing, please bare in mind the rating of this fic is an approximation and I am not responsible for anything that happens or anything caused by this fic, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

 **I hope you enjoy aaaaaaaaaaaaand let's do this!**

 **End Authors Note.**

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 **Mandatory Disclaimer: I've said it once i'll say it again, I do not own RWBY, just the OC's; RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum.**

 _Thoughts._

 **"Someone who isn't there but is speaking to someone...like telepathy or something."**

 **Time-skip or something similar.**

"Normal Speech and SHOUTING."

 **(Making an authors note during fic.)**

* * *

 **The Greybox Unknown time, date and location.**

"So that's how this began? You killed your team?" Ironwood spoke in a dangerous tone. "It's where I think this chain of events started ja, though there were a couple of other situations before that, if they didn't happen we wouldn't be here." The man said with a sad smile on his face, his tone and body language suggested he was unfazed by Ironwoods tone.

Ironwood was beginning to get a little impatient but persisted anyway, he didn't like lengthy interrogations and he didn't have authorization to keep him here forever so he couldn't just wait it out. "Do you know this woman?" Ironwood showed him a picture of a certain woman, leading the male opposite Ironwood to chuckle to himself. "Ohhhhh do I know this girl." Even if it was something he said to himself, his tone said that he knew her...intimately.

* * *

 **A Year and three months after events in previous chapter. The Emerald Forest.**

"I've been looking for this man for a while now, he can be difficult to find when he wants to be. Even with his sudden disappearance, the world needs him once again and I'm going to make sure he comes back." Those were the words a girl no older than sixteen at the time, used to motivate herself to trudge forward through the calmness of the forest with a combat harness that she found uncomfortable and clunky. But as calm as it was, she already knew that this forest was filled with danger.

Though most Grimm are pretty average to handle for her, she could quite easily run into something she really didn't want to deal with, like a King Taijitu. From the darkest part of the forest around her, she could feel that something was watching her, not just Grimm, but a person. A very, very dangerous person. _I found you._ She thought to herself almost triumphantly, since no one else would dare live this deep into the forest.

Before she could even process that sentence though, she heard a partial hiss before a loud crack and the sound of something hitting the ground harder than a giant serpent causing her to jump a little. As she turned to see the White half of the King Taijitu with eyes deflated like balloons, on the ground limp, she noticed someone running up the Black half of the King Taijitu.

His masculine build was evident, light gleaming from the black and red helmet, visible muscle on his chest that only someone who spent their life in the military could match, he wasn't built for show, he was built for perfection. The helmet he wore seemed more like a war mask than for protection, obviously inspired by the Grimm. A black unzipped leather jacket with many cuts on it, along with the black jeans, also ruffed up from a year's worth of abuse and lack of contact with the kingdoms of the world, strangely enough; no shoes or even socks were being worn.

What caught her eyes the most however were his eyes, one a deep blood red much like a Grimm and the other, an amber she knew she would find. This is the boy she had been looking for, but he's different and she intended to find out why, no matter how long it took.

Watching the fifteen year old boy take down the other half of the King Taijitu was like watching a dancer in their prime. He was graceful with every dodge, every slice from his katana was precise, every fluid motion was one of someone who had been doing it for hundreds of years and yet he still hadn't broken a sweat. It was as if the fabric of reality would bend to his will if he so wished it. Especially when he used his Metallic Grey Aura, not only blocking an attack, he used it to flatten the jaws the Taijitu head attempted to chomp half of his body off with.

With that half of the King Taijitu reeling in pain, he proceeded to jump on top of the head, slice its eyes out of their sockets and empty the clip of the smart pistol crafted into his katana blade into the brain, an instantaneous death, all in one set of swift, accurate movements, as if this were staged from the very beginning. "You're still impressive, even if you've only been fighting Grimm on your own for a year." she said, a smile forming on her lips as she slowly approached him, only to have the end of his sword pressed against her forehead in a flash.

"Why are you looking for me?" He asked in a quiet monotone, what hair that was sticking out was blowing softly in the wind. His reaction caused the girl to frown slightly. "Because I need you, we all do." she said honestly. "I don't know what you're talking about." He replied in the same quiet monotone as before, this caused a slight bit of anger to flare up inside her.

"Don't play dumb with me! I know who you are, a vigilante who only appeared at the right time to stop the crime of the world, the hope of the people, you're a hero with no anthem, you serve no laws or kingdom, just your individual code, no one is safe from your judgement, you are the Arbiter of right and wrong." she partially recited the ancient folklore of the Arbiter with a swell of pride and anger.

This triggered an unexpected reaction from him. "I'm not that 'vigilante' anymore, he died a long time ago, the Arbiter is dead! I'm not that boy anymore either, I left both being a Hunter and the Arbiter behind when I killed them!" he raised his voice at her in a half angry half sad tone, his voice started to crack at the end, knowing more about who he used to be than she did.

At this she did her best to smile warmly at him rather than cry, proceeding to clasp her hands around the hand pointing his almost brand new blade at her face. "No, I believe he's alive, he just needs something to fight for again." It was a quietly spoken sentence, she probably misheard him a little but that didn't matter, she didn't need to know, the sentence she spoke however, or more specifically the words 'something to fight for again' were the ones that hit him where he still bleeds from time to time.

He slowly put down his blade and in question turned around to leave only for the girl to follow him; as they reached the edge of the tree line before a sheer drop. He turned to the girl, the mask on his face started to fold into a tiny metal square at the back of his head, revealing his tired face, almost ill pale skin and untidy black hair with white ends. His cat ears barely visible on top of his head, the white ends of his hair signified extreme stress, or possibly something else, she also noticed that the blood-vessels in the red eye and around the red eye are black but decided against asking anything for now.

"When the dark conquers the light?" he asked in a half joking tone, a tiny smile creeping at the edges of his lips. "From the wreckage he will rise." she smiled warmly at another old part of the folklore surrounding the Arbiter. She then proceeding to hug him tight knowing that her mission was complete. Bring the Arbiter back.

At this unexpected action from the girl he could only freeze and tense up, his face turning into a tomato, he slowly hugged her back, making her giggle. "What's your real name?" she asked as she looked up at him. "What, you could figure out where I am and what I look like but you couldn't figure out my real name? My name is Cann. You?" **(Cann = Sh-awn or Sha-aan.)** He said in a partially sarcastic tone. They soon released each other from the embrace as she laughed at his humour and then smiled up at him since he was about half a head taller. "My name is Cinder, Cinder Fall."

He smiled warmly at her and kissed her hand as a gentleman should, it was now Cinders turn to have her face turn into a tomato. "What would you have your Arbiter do?" he asked, causing Cinder to smile.

Three simple words were her honest reply. "Change the world."

* * *

 **And that's the end of todays chapter...**

 **I'm kidding I wouldn't be that mean to leave it on a cliffhanger!**

* * *

 **The Greybox Unknown time, date and location.**

"So you do or did know her?" He could only smile in response, irritating the General once more. "What do you know of the Arbiter?" He asked a bit more of a serious tone. "Depends if you want folklore or the real thing." Ironwood raised an eyebrow in annoyance. "Both then." the man simply stated.

"Well, he is said to be an immortal warrior capable of having multiple Semblances, a master of Aura usage and any weapon known to man and Faunus kind. That and his name emphasizes why he exists, to judge what is right or wrong and act accordingly." He said simply, Ironwood kept his stoic expression. "The Arbiter is a criminal no different than other scum, he or she has killed hundreds of thousands indiscriminately."

This made the man laugh. "If he is a criminal then there would be no reason for him to exist and your shiny little criminal justice system would be much better than it should be!" He nearly shouted. "Why do you think that?" Ironwood asked, curious on the inside. "Because the Arbiter is merely a symbol created because someone believed that justice could never truly accomplish deciding what is wrong or right, it isn't always black and white, I believe the Arbiter told you that already, didn't he?" He smirked at the General who remained stoic but looked like he was about to implode if you looked behind his face.

"What do you know about this 'Cinder' character?" General Ironwood asked straight forwardly. "I know alot, but the answers to certain questions are confidential." He replied with a smirk. Ironwood tried his utmost best to remain in his state of neutrality, now showing him a few pieces of security footage of two people breaking into the Atlas communications tower, decimating the security together as if choreographed for a movie.

"Do you know these two?" Ironwood could only speculate at who they were, he didn't need to. "Say I do know who they are and how they were trained...why would you want to know?" He asked with an evil smirk. "Tell me everything you know, I want to know what I'm up against." Ironwood responded in a deadpan tone. "Then let me give you a shorter version, otherwise we'll be here for more than a year." He said in an equally deadpan tone, again making the General wish he could pound his skull into dust.

* * *

 **8 seconds of falling and 11 minutes of walking after previous events. Still in the Emerald Forest.**

"So, how would I, an extremely skilled warrior, ex-hunter and former Arbiter of the people be of help to you?" He spoke in a more happier tone than he would normally. "Well...training?...or something?" She said in a hopeful tone causing Cann to chuckle. "And what experience do you have?" He asked in an almost teasing tone, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised at Cinder. She huffed. "I'll have you know I survived an encounter with a pack of Beowolves." She said almost insulted, Canns smile getting bigger every second she spoke.

"Uh huh, have you memorised the rules?" He asked his smile remaining the same. "Rules?" Cinder asked. Before she could react, her arms and hands were restrained behind her back and she was on the hard wood floor, this process took about half a second. "Ow..." Was Cinders only response as he released her and she got up.

"Rule number one, remain vigilant of your surroundings, note who is of threat and who isn't. If you think that a fight is even a small likelihood, you stay within a runners pace of any exit." He said as he leaned a head towards the exit out of 'natural habit'.

"How many rules are there?" Cinder asked curiously, causing Cann to roll his eyes. "Do you want to learn or not?" Cinder nodded frantically like a child swearing that they were being good while their parents were gone, even though the house looked like it was bombed.

"Rule number two, the best way to end a fight is before it even begins, try to be in an open area with witnesses, as your opponent acts aggressive, you keep your words passive, but put your footwork into stance and lean back a little, hands up to about your neck, now you're ready to sit him or her onto their ass if they charge you." He watched as Cinder drank in the information, she was definitely eager to learn from who was essentially, a living legend. Teaching wasn't really his thing, but he enjoyed being able to talk to someone now, that much he would admit.

"Rule number three, no matter what, your opponent is likely to have an advantage over you in some way, exploit weaknesses appropriately, only use lethal strikes when they are attempting to kill you, it's still better to use disabling hits, like nerve strikes." Continuing to explain rules as if he were the headmaster of a school. "Are you listening to everything I'm saying?" He asked with a small smile on his face.

"Yes I'm listening why wouldn't I be?" Cinder replied instantaneously, he motioned for Cinder to follow him, which she did, closely. "Now you know the basics of a fight in a public area against an untrained opponent, so i'm going to teach you to fight against trained opponents. Stand in front of that rock, about your size." He pointed to it and she walked over to it slightly confused. "By the end of today you'll be able to shatter that rock with one hand." He said causing Cinder to turn to him with a very unbelieving expression. "Well it's that or you'll have alot of broken bones in your hands." He said sarcastically.

Cinder raised her eyebrows at him. "Alright, watch this then." He said, Cinder subconsciously admiring him as he walked over to a rock about his size, he turned to look at her causing her to instantly snap her eyes to his with an innocent smile and rosie cheeks, eliciting him to roll his eyes. "Observe." That word was definitely something she planned on doing.

Setting up his footwork he struck the rock with his palm and to her amazement, it shattered to pieces. "What did I do differently there?" He asked causing Cinder to shrug dumbly, he smiled a little and shook his head before reforming the rock with what Cinder would've wrongly assumed was his semblance.

"Watch closely." He said pointing to his right hand. He got himself into position once again, going to palm strike the rock again, she noticed a brief shimmer of his Aura just before the impact of his palm and the rock, she understood now, but that didn't make it seem any less impossible.

"I..what..how?" She asked dumbfounded at what she just witnessed. Cann laughed at the look on her face before saying. "Projecting your Aura as a barrier is only a smidge of what you can do with it, while yes it drains your Aura a little, you can use it for much more than protection, against something just in front of you, while it's the same principal, you're projecting your Aura in a different means. You can shatter objects by increasing the force of your strikes, use it to slow moving objects to a halt, healing yourself etc etc. A Hunters weapon can act as conduits for the Aura of oneself, which can be increased like stamina, the more you train yourself to use it, the more efficient you'll get." He explained, Cinder, still dumbstruck, managed to still take in this information.

"So...how?" She asked, Cann could only smile at her questioning. "Very carefully." He half joked causing Cinder to roll her eyes smirking.

 **Several hours of blood, sweat, tears and Cinder moaning because everything hurts.**

When the sun was about to escape the day, Cinder had accomplished training to use her Aura not only as a barrier but as a strength booster and projectile stopper, this was only the beginning for her though, he was impressed, not alot of people can learn this quick, she was eager, that was good, but at the same time it could make her reckless and that would cause her to make mistakes...fatal ones. "Well done Cinder, but I think that's enough for you today." He said, proceeding to gradually head inside his tree house, it took a couple of seconds for Cinder to catch up, but when she did, she could only blush as she realised something.

"Ummmm...where am I going to sleep?" She asked cautiously. "In my bed." He replied calmly, he already took off his leather jacket, revealing large amounts of claw, blade, bullet and burn scars alike over his back, chest and arms; he's obviously been through alot, more than someone his age should have.

"Then where will you sleep?" She couldn't stop staring at his chest, her cheeks remaining rosie, if anything it was one of the first times she'd seen a boy topless and he was only a year younger physically, but mentally he's basically a decade ahead of his time. "To answer your question, I'm sleeping on the floor, and my eyes are up here." He said whistling a little, snapping her out the trance she was in, her face turning a fine red colour making Cann chuckle.

"Sooner or later you'll get to see everything, don't you worry." He said in a teasing tone chuckling, causing Cinder to blush harder and stammer. "I wasn't, I wasn't thinking, I didn't, I mean I did, no wait!" This only fuelled his laughter, he was crying out of happiness, something that hadn't happened to him in a very long time and he needed it.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this to myself._ She thought as she blushed furiously, getting butterflies in her stomach. Then realizing something. "So wait, does that mean you're interested in me?" She said with a smirk as she saw him now laughing nervously rubbing the back of his neck. _Oh how the tables have turned in my favour._ She thought to herself.

"What's that, I can't hear you." She said in a mocking tone, he was quiet and blushing. "Oh so you don't like me?" She said teasingly, causing the now flustered Cann to stutter. "Wha? Nein, I mean, no, I mean yes, wait I mean-" Cinder was now laughing at Cann. "You're mean." Cann said, arms crossed, half pouting with his ears back blushing like a tomato.

"Fine, you're sleeping on the floor." He said smirking to himself, causing Cinder to giggle, Cann was in his bed made of the skin of the local wildlife that wasn't Grimm and the bed frame was made of wood. "You think I don't have..." She paused mid-sentence as he dropped all his clothing besides his undergarments out of the bed, he was now laying there, covered by his homemade duvet, smiling smugly at a now cherry red Cinder. "Oh so now you stop talking? I bet you don't have the guts to get in this bed now." He chuckled.

Much to his surprise and embarrassment. She did in fact get in, dropping most of her clothing out of the bed, they were now both laying next to each other blushing like tomatoes until they both eventually fell asleep due to overwhelming embarrassment, Cinder hugging Canns arm out of instinct, they made a cute couple.

Cinder woke up to find Cann laying there eyes fixed at the ceiling, he was sweating and the white in his hair had spread a little. "Cann...are you okay?" She asked, concerned for the health of someone she hoped she could call a friend. He could only smile a little and turn his head, his eyes meeting hers. Seemingly contemplating whether or not he should say anything.

"I suffer night terrors..." He said quietly, but enough for Cinder to hear causing her to frown slightly and hug his neck comforting him the best she could. "Do you know why?" She asked curiously hoping she wasn't going too far.

He gave a sad chuckle. "There's a reason I isolated myself out here...remember I said I was a Hunter?" She nodded. "Well...that was a partial lie...I say partially because I used to be one of Professor Ozpins students in his personal class of four people, the 'best and brightest of the kingdoms', he handpicked them." He spoke solemnly. "Professor Ozpin? The headmaster of Beacon Academy?" He nodded. "The very same. He was one of the greatest men I knew, wise, skilled and strong, a little miss-guided and obsessive over a few things but that was acceptable." Cinder could only sit and listen. "I think its been a year now...since Ozpin sent me and my team members off to some sort of ancient temple, I'd only been with them for a couple of weeks, the temple gave off its own Aura, like it was alive, it was dark inside, I was the only one who could see. I'd never been so terrified in my life..."

Cinder was listening, hugging him as tight as she could, trying her best to comfort him and herself at the same time. "You don't have to continue if you don't want to." She smiled warmly. "Nein, it's okay, I have to do this, besides, its better that I get it off my chest." He smiled back sadly causing her to peck his cheek; his cheeks turned rosie before he continued. "According to the village nearby, the temple housed the soul of a very powerful Grimm, a son of the first Grimm, stored inside a powerful dust crystal. I thought it was rubbish at first, until it all added up. The black crystal I picked up from the temple was the source of a Fear semblance, it caused everyone to undergo severe hallucinations, including me, I thought I saw my little sister die only to come back and kill me. By the time I was just able to think straight, I found my last friends on the ground dead, because of me, the cause of death matched an enraged Faunus, the claw and-" he was interrupted by Cinder as he was shaking and tears were starting to fall down his cheeks at the memories that still haunt him to this day.

Cinder could only do her best to hug him tight and keep him from crying anymore, otherwise she'd start crying to, so she did the only thing she could think of on the spot, close his mouth by kiss. It worked and to her surprise after a few seconds for Canns shock to pass, he kissed back slightly, his entire face now red from embarrassment. "Don't think about it anymore, there's nothing you can do about the past, lets focus on the future, okay?" She smiled warmly with a soothing tone, before hugging his head at her chest. She could've sworn she felt is chest rumble. she now knew that she herself would be one of the few good people to come into his life and stay, because she would stay for so long as either of them are alive.

They continued their silent agreement on keeping each other comfortable and warm until realizing that they'd need to get out of bed eventually. So it was a unanimous agreement, deciding that now would be the best time, if only they weren't just in lingerie. Cinder pushed Canns head into the makeshift pillow they were using, with a small smirk and blush on her face. "Now don't you dare look." Was all she said before getting out of bed and getting dressed. Not realizing that he was basically unconscious from lack of air anyway.

After realizing that, she looked outside to find that it wasn't really day time yet, if anything it was definitely morning, but the sun wasn't up. Cinder simply sighed and looked over to her new best friend, her only friend and wondered for a split second if it would ever become something more, shoving that thought to the deep recesses of her mind and continued staring into the distance at a herd of Goliaths, one stared at her for a few seconds before moving on, obviously deciding that she wasn't worth their time.

"I've never had to fight a Goliath before, believe it or not." Cann spoke causing Cinder to jump a little. "You've made me get up early." He said, slightly agitated and obviously tired; at least he was half dressed now. "Sorry, do you know what time it is?" She asked seemingly forgetting she only had only two pieces of clothing on. He simply stared at the clear sky above for a few seconds before coming to his rather accurate conclusion. "Around twenty to five in the morning." Cinder raised an eyebrow at him before shaking her head with a silent sigh of puzzlement. _Another of one of the many tricks he knows._ She thought to herself.

"Go back to bed, I'm going hunting." He said simply causing Cinder to nod and for him to put on his leather jacket, his weapons seemingly nowhere to be found which Cinder thought was odd. After about six hours she woke to the smell of cooking venison and Cann looking through what looked like a big basket full of fish, this lead to a very evil idea to be created in her mischievous mind.

She silently crept behind him and poked the back of his head causing him to jump and hug the basket as if for dear life eliciting Cinder to laugh at his reaction. Cann now with his ears back was giving Cinder a disapproving glare, only succeeding in making Cinder giggle more. "Don't scare me like tha..." His sentence was shortened by Cinder lifting up a Tuna fish from the basket he was clinging to like a koala bear. His eyes and nose following it wherever she moved it. He then proceeded to snatch it quickly out of her hand faster than lightning and begin gnawing on it before looking up at Cinder with big eyes, making Cinder melt on the inside. "You're cute when you're like this, you know that right?" She giggled.

The rest of the Breakfast session was filled with him putting up with a pride killing stare because Cinder made him look like the cutest thing the world had ever seen because of his favorite food and heritage. _Damn you instincts!_ He thought to himself. Cann had to look at Cinder every so often to see if she stopped, she hadn't, every time. After Breakfast was thankfully finished he proceeded to drag her out of the tree house, much to her dismay and he began training her in many different methods of Aura usage, weapons, tactics, social psychology, applications of dust and much, much more over a span of a few weeks, which soon blurred together to become months.

But before she could even come close to being in his league, she had to learn something hard, you can never be perfect. She could learn everything fine and fast, it was her attitude that he could not change by normal means of training, prompting him to do something many would argue as easy, until you experience it. Drills and no more mister nice guy.

He began by waking her up at half past six in the morning and making her get to a nearby river to wash, then came along training, attempting to defeat him in any form of combat, she always failed but never gave up. If she backed out, she would have to defend against him and he was ruthless on the battlefield.

* * *

 **Thirty two weeks and two days** went by and he no longer had to say a word, the routine was burned into Cinders mind, the young arrogance and over-confidence in combat turned into a level headed, cold and calculating mind on the battlefield, but she was still nowhere near as experienced in every form of combat as he was and luckily enough she kept the personality she first had when he first met her.

Get up at half past six in the morning, wash by the river, hunt for an hour, no more no less. Breakfast, training with Cann, ask the questions she wanted to. Lunch, live fire training, or more specifically ambushing multiple Grimm. Tidying up the tree house and then it was free time before and after Dinner which occurred at half past six in the evening, everyday, for seven months straight.

Tonight however would be different, Cinder would ask three or so questions he either avoided or she hadn't thought of in the seven months they had been together. "Cann...when was the last time you met your family?" He froze. "I mean, you've told me you have a little sister but you haven't told me much else about them." He could only close his eyes as if in pain. "Cann...do you even have a family?" She asked, her tone remained indifferent but there was definitely a hint of comfort and regret behind it.

"Just my little sister...I took care of her ever since our parents died, she was two at the time so she didn't understand, she probably doesn't even remember it. I became the parental figure for her, when she reached six years old I taught her how to look after herself, by the time she was seven I was teaching her to defend herself...I was forced to leave when she was nine years old." He said with a said sigh, it wasn't the whole story and a partial lie, but it was all she needed to know; maybe he'd tell her the whole story one day.

She hated seeing him like this, so she hugged him tight and gave his cheek a peck which he returned without hesitation. "What about your eye?" Cinder asked, Cann looked at her oddly. "You don't know?" She asked. "Well I haven't come in contact with a mirror for two years so it wouldn't surprise me if I grew a beard without noticing." He said in a sarcastic manner causing Cinder to giggle.

"Your right eye is red, like a Grimm, could it be from the temple you got your night terrors from?" She suggested thoughtfully. "Maybe..." He said, it didn't really matter to him so long as it didn't hinder him. Cinder had been noticing something about Cann, he'd wake up with a cold sweat, but he never reacted to it, like he was used to it. _Adapting to night terrors._ She thought to herself sadly, it isn't something anyone should have to do but it has been so long for him that Fear might seem trivial to him.

The next morning she woke, instead of finding Cann awake at the exact same time, she found him packing things. "Cann?" She said with a yawn. "We're leaving." He said calmly. "What? Why?" She asked slightly concerned. "Because we have work to do." Without objection, she had a wash, got dressed and took up the second backpack, setting off to a single destination: The city of Vale. But what Cinder didn't know is that he made a deal with the devil.

* * *

"So you came to Vale how long ago?" Ironwood asked. "Around three or so years ago." He replied plainly. Ironwood was sure that this plain talking wouldn't last long, so he had to take as much advantage of it as possible. "What have you done since then?" Ironwood asked causing him to chuckle.

"Well General, that is where the fun begins." He smirked. Ironwood now felt unease for the first time in forever.

* * *

 **And that's a rap! (No it isn't)**

 **Since this the second chapter, I can now confirm that the writing for this fic will take at maximum an month, at minimum, about a week, unless something very bad happens to me which can always happen, i'm the only member of my family that hasn't been to hospital for an injury so i've got that going for me.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed, don't forget to review to tell me what you thought, if you've got any helpful tips, tricks or ideas feel free to leave those as well, or if you want general banter and to have a conversation** **via reviews, you can do that to,** **or point out every single little Easter egg i plant for you to hunt for, also works. Make sure you favorite if you liked it and to Follow if you want to see more from me, I am TimoremCordeNostro and I shall see you my awesome audience (har har) in the next chapter!**

 **Oh and I've added this little section of words because it was on '999' and it really bugged me :/**


	3. Team Building Exercise Part 1

**Hello everybody, I am TimoremCordeNostro and welcome back to RWBY: Fallen from the Rise.**

 **Billmastergamin115 - While yes this is true, the reason is, is that Cinder is being Cinder and Cann has had zero contact with any other Human or Faunas for a very long time so psychologically he should be more attached to her because subconsciously he really doesn't want to be alone, trust me, I spent nearly two years in a similar situation to Cann and I can honestly say that I suffered very much mentally, the first time I found out one of my old friends had specifically come to me despite my parents objections, I was surprised and I formed a very fast emotional attachment...wasn't the best of times for me.**

 **As always constructive criticism is always welcome, this was written with my brilliant Beta-reader and co-writer Billmastergamin115, so a big special thanks to meine Freund!**

 **WARNING: - This Fic contains scenes that young people may find disturbing, please bare in mind the rating of this fic is an approximation and I am not responsible for anything that happens or anything caused by this fic, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

 **I hope you enjoy aaaaaaaaaaaaand let's do this!**

 **End Authors Note.**

* * *

 **The Greybox, unknown date and time**

"What do you mean by that exactly?" Ironwood asked. He leaned forward and said. "Well, there was a whole bunch of things that lead up to today, you've gooooot, the day I met Roman Torchwick, the day I met up with Ozpin again, the day I unceremoniously almost killed a very special girl...she really liked lightning and twisters." He was said with a distant tone, as if he were talking to himself.

"What about when you met Team RWBY?" Ironwood asked in a perfectly neutral tone. Leading to have a chuckle in response. "That was a little while ago, around...five or so months ago." He said as if in boredom. "Then tell me what happened." Ironwood asked, though it was more of a demand.

* * *

 **4 Years after previous chapter.**

Blake opened her eyes and looked around the dorm room, bunk beds and all, everyone else was sound asleep, she looked over to her clock to find it was half past six in the morning, as per usual, the routine drilled into her head ever since she was a child. She got up and decided to have a nice hot shower.

After said shower she now felt more relaxed until she stepped out the bathroom with nothing but a robe and her bow on her head and found her friends reading something from a piece of paper, as the door closed behind her, they all noticed her existence and were as usual, unfazed by what she had on, Yang was the first to speak. "Hey Blake! Professor Ozpin wants us to go on a 'Team Building Exercise' or something like that." she didn't sound too bothered by it but at the same time she was excited by the implications.

"You really ought to pay more attention Yang." Weiss spoke in her usual scolding tone. "Let me read." Blake eventually said, taking the letter and reading it out loud: " 'Team RWBY, your team has been selected to spend a minimum of two days in a Team Building Exercise, this low level mission is completely safe, there is an almost zero percent risk of any of you getting hurt. You will each have to work together in order to accomplish your task because as much as it is low-risk that doesn't mean it's not difficult. And also, as soon as you receive this, Blake Belladonna please report to my office as soon as possible. Signed, Professor Ozpin.' "

Blake raised her eyebrow at this. _What could he possibly want with me?_ It took her a few seconds to realise she had spaced out; this became obvious as her arm became numb from Ruby poking her over and over again. "Blaaaaaaaaaake." Yang waved her hand in front of her face which Blake promptly swatted away lightly. "I'm fine." she said. "You look like you're contenplat...comtenplat…" Ruby struggled with the word.

"Contemplating?" Weiss offered eliciting a nod from Ruby. "That word." as she was about to continue talking, all three of them heard the door close and then saw now empty space where Blake was standing, Blake had managed to get dressed and leave before any of them had noticed. "Well that was rude." Yang pouted.

Blake was both agitated and confused at why Ozpin could possibly want to talk to her. _I've told him something that should've kept him happy...did he find out about?_ Her thoughts paused at that, if he did find out anything from her past she would surely be put in jail, or have to run away...again.

For the first time in a very long time, she gulped and took a deep breath as she entered the elevator. The doors closed and for the first time in years once again, she was scared, she hadn't been scared since that one fateful night. _Don't think about that._ She mentally cursed herself knowing that if she did think about that memory then she would break down into tears at any point.

The doors opened and the first thing she noticed was someone in a white short skirted trench coat with what she barely managed to process as dust in the shape of Kanji imprinted onto it, leaping off the edge of the tower, she ran to the rail as fast as she could only to see no one falling. "What…" she whispered to herself before she heard footsteps on the other side of the room causing her whip around so fast it would've looked like she teleported.

The headmaster of beacon academy was standing there calmly with his cane and cup of coffee as usual; a warm smile across his face, there wasn't one thing about him that suggested hostility, just his usual happy and calm demeanour, if anything he looked happier than he normally would. _Well, he might not know._ She reassured herself while simultaneously deciding that it was best to keep what she saw when she entered the room, to herself.

"Blake, I'm glad you came to see me on such short notice and so early in the morning." He gave her that signature smile he would give to everyone, only that he definitely seemed to be happier today, _I wonder why._ She thought to herself idly. He offered her a seat which she politely accepted and sat down before the Professor sat at his own desk.

"Do you know why I've called you here, Ms. Belladonna?" he asked. Blake immediately and slightly anxiously nodded to say no. He noticed but shrugged it off already knowing why anyway, but of course Blake didn't know that he knows almost everything about her already from a previous student. "I called you here because you will be the only person on your team to know a certain piece of information that I trust you alone with." at this Blake nodded cautiously.

"You and your teammates will be dropped in the middle of the Emerald Forest where you will survive until the observing Hunter decides that you each can no longer sustain yourselves."

Blake was a little surprised at this but was sensing an 'and' coming along. "And?" Ozpin chuckled lightly. "Very perceptive, the Hunter that is watching over you will also be Hunting You, stealing supplies, luring Grimm to your direction and much more."

Blake was to say the least, ready for the challenge. But she was wondering something. "Professor, if you don't mind my asking, why trust me with this information?" The Professor only smiled and said: "I'll tell you after the exercise is complete." at this, she nodded and was dismissed, she went back to the dorm with the information at the forefront of her mind, even during class, she would space out or doze off due to the information and a very rugged sleeping pattern.

 **Approximately 5 hours later.**

They were all about to board the Bullhead when Blake paused, recognising a familiar white short skirted trench coat, she watched as the ramp closed behind the man or woman, and their Bullhead take off, she never managed to catch a glimpse of his or her face and that was beginning to bother her.

"Hey Blake, let's go!" Ruby said in her usual cheerful voice. Blake now brought back to reality, stepped inside the confines of the Bullhead, now thinking about what Ozpin told her. "Something on your mind Blake?" Yang asked. "No, nothing." she trailed off still thinking at that vital information. She then heard Yang gasp, causing Blake to look up at her. "You're thinking about a boy aren't you!?" Yang nearly screamed out of excitement with the grin of a devil.

"No Yang I-" before Blake could say anymore, she was now being bombarded with questions. "What's his name? Do we know him? Is it Jaune? Is it even a Boy?" she let in a very long gasp. "Is it a girl?" Blake just raised her eyebrow at Yang who still had her devilish grin. "Is it? Ha, is it?" Yang kept nudging Blake's arm with an elbow winking every so often. "Yang...I'm not thinking about anyone." she said seriously. At this Yang pouted.

"So, what are you thinking about?" Ruby genuinely asked, curious. "Is it about the mission? Or what Ozpin wanted to see you for?" Weiss asked getting a little suspicious in her own special way. Blake was about to say something, but she hesitated. _Ozpin told me not to tell them. I shouldn't, but it could mean they may get hurt if they don't know._ After thinking it through to herself she was about to tell them everything, only for the Osprey like jet to shake violently, putting most of them on their chest or back, then everything went black as a loud crash was barely registered in Blake's mind.

"Owwwwwww…" Were the first words to leave Blake's mouth as she gradually became conscious again, slowly opening her eyes, having to flutter her eyelids due to the overwhelming amount of light, she found herself in a small clearing of the forest with the others who looked uninjured. Yang was punching a tree out of frustration, nothing different there; Weiss and Ruby were conversing with each other, that's different but not noteworthy. Blake then thought back to the last thing she remembered, _crashing. Crashing...Crashing, CRASH!_ It took her a few seconds to process that piece of information.

She sat up instantaneously looking around; there was no crash site, just them, Team RWBY, in a small clearing, in the middle of the Emerald Forest, alone. Everyone then noticed that she was awake and instantly crowded around her. "Are you okay Blake?" Ruby asked in her innocent tone of worry. "I'm fine, what about the Bullhead?" They looked at each other. "You don't remember being moved either." Weiss said in a tone of what was very likely to be a Weiss frustration, which would lead to a Weiss pout and then a Weiss complaining mood, then everyone else's frustration.

Yang was already continuing to pummel another poor tree until it was nothing but sawdust. Blake took this moment to tell them what Ozpin had told her. "Hey, everyone." They all turned to her as she got to her feet dusting herself off. "What is it Blake?" Ruby asked with a tilted head showing genuine curiosity as usual. "Ozpin told me to keep this a secret from you, but now I'm not sure I want to." Yang was the first to say something. "Oooooo I love secrets, what kind of secret?"

Blake stared at Yang blankly for a few seconds before continuing. "He told me what was going to happen, he didn't tell me about the crash, but he did tell me that we would be here until we couldn't survive any longer and that a Hunter would be overseeing our survival skills and teamwork. And that the Hunter would also be making it harder for us to survive."

"By doing what?" Weiss asked anger clear behind her voice. "By stealing supplies when we aren't looking, sending small packs of Grimm in our general direction and more that he didn't mention." Blake listed off the possibilities leading to an even grumpier Weiss, angry Yang and a confused Ruby. "Why would he do that?" Ruby asked. "To test us you dult weren't you listening?" Weiss shot at Ruby, causing Ruby to wince a little, before Weiss sighed and apologised. "Ruby, I'm sorry, I'm just so damn angry right now!" Ruby simply smiled and said. "It's okay, we're all in this together after all." chuckling awkwardly.

Ruby then decided to show why Ozpin made her leader of this team. "Okay, Yang, you're on firewood duty, Blake, hunt for food, keep an eye out for cookie trees, me and Weiss will look for a wreckage, we all meet back here in an hour, understand?" Ruby said seriously. "Ruby, there's no such thing as a cookie-" Blake was about to say before she was interrupted "DON'T BURST MY BUBBLE!" she screamed, clearly upset in an angry way. "She hasn't had a cookie in five days." Yang whispered to Blake making her look at Yang oddly.

Everyone was surprised at the sudden shift in attitude to say the least but nevertheless, they all went off to perform their assigned roles, Weiss staying an extra couple of feet away from Ruby, everyone immediately started hearing the smashing of wood as Yang started pounding more of those poor trees into submission.

Blake was stalking a doe that was grazing by a set of trees, but she couldn't help but feel like she was being watched to, and whatever it was, her mind told her to run at full sprint in the opposite direction of it. Ignoring that feeling for the moment, she slowly and stealthily stalked her way to her pray. Then she pounced, pinning the doe to the floor by the neck, starving it of oxygen so that it would fall unconscious, just like she had been taught, she then proceeded to snap the unconscious does neck to make sure it didn't feel any pain whatsoever.

After this short encounter, she noticed that the feeling of being watched had lifted. Whoever or whatever was watching her had moved on. _The Hunter…_ she thought to herself, she then proceeded to carry the corpse of the doe back to where they would set up camp for the night.

"Woah, Blake, you need help there?" Yang asked as she proceeded to toss more wood into the fire, it was sunset and not getting any warmer. "I'm fine, thanks." Blake dropped the corpse of the doe in front of her seat. "You seen Ruby or Weiss? I haven't seen them in a while." Yang sounded a bit nervous, likely for her little sister, even though earliers display proved that she really didn't need to. "No, I haven't, I'm sure they're fine, sit down and relax while I skin this doe."

"Wait what?" Was all that Yang said before having to cover her mouth to stop herself from losing her lunch. "What?" Blake asked legitimately confused as she was skinning the doe, and disposing of anything from the doe that couldn't be cooked and eaten. "How're you doing that?" Yang asked, still queasy. "What? This?" Blake nonchalantly lifted up the small intestines of the dead doe causing Yang's eyes to widen again and for her to run off to the bushes to deposit her lunch.

Blake just shrugged and continued her craft, after about 15 minutes Yang returned, pale and tired looking. "How are you so calm about that?" Yang barely managed to speak without hurling again just from thinking about it. "I was taught since I was a kid, I still remember everything I was taught." Blake said simply. "Oh...that explains a lot...uuugghhhh." Blake smiled a little at Yang's uneasiness around gore, which was slightly surprising considering her hot headed nature.

After a few minutes, Blake disposed of the things she didn't need so Yang wouldn't throw up anywhere near their food, while Blake was doing this, Weiss and Ruby had apparently returned along with a large amounts of equipment, Weiss was exhausted due to the method of transportation they used; a very large amount of glyphs.

Blake set up the edible parts of the doe to be strung up over the fire to be cooked, by that time, Weiss and Yang fell asleep. But that feeling of being watched is back again and Blake was getting fidgety. "Blake...what's wrong?" Ruby asked with a tilted head of curiosity. Blake looked at one of the larger trees with an odd shadow in it, too far to be able to tell who or what it was even with her night vision. _There._ She thought to herself, until the shadow seemingly disappeared which caused her to go on the defence and keep a hand near her weapon.

"Blake?" Ruby asked more worried than before. The feeling suddenly disappeared again, only causing more unease, she quickly scanned every tree, every shadow, every corner, every alcove, nothing. "Blake!" Ruby nearly had to shout, this grabbed her attention. "Yes?" Blake asked in a perfectly neutral tone. "You okay?" Ruby asked, still worried for her friend.

Blake scanned the area a bit more before calming down and finally replying. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you." Blake said genuinely, Ruby smiled and nodded calming down at least a little and smiling at Blake with that innocent smile of hers. "Ruby?" Blake said. "Mm?" was Ruby's reply. "You should eat before you go to bed." Blake suggested eliciting Ruby to nod then look at the cooking doe, seemingly not knowing what to do.

Blake just rolled her eyes and cut a few pieces off for Ruby, who in turn started munching on the venison. "Mmmmm." was mostly all Blake could hear coming from Ruby. _I wonder if there's a lake nearby._ Blake absentmindedly thought to herself before grabbing something to eat and going to sleep.

 **P.O.V. Switch**

Now that Blake was asleep, he could sneak in and out without anyone noticing, noting that Ruby was still awake, but that didn't matter, he had to cause some mischief, so that's exactly what would happen. _What to take though…_ he thought to himself as he quietly walked over to the mini-camp they had set up and took a thing or two before silently walking away, only for him to hear weapons being pointed in his direction _._

 _They were awake all along. It's a trap, impressive._ He thought to himself with a smirk. "Who are you and where do you think you're going with our stuff?" Yang asked in a deadly serious tone. Turning on the voice changer fitted into his helmet by making a click sound, he slowly turned, knowing that he would be almost invisible to everyone besides Blake in the quickly darkening clearing of the Forest. Blake was much more cautious about him than the others; hopefully she didn't recognise him quite yet.

"I'm not going to ask again." Yang and the others now getting into a combat stance. He gave off a small growl which sounded much deeper and threatening than he meant it to be. "Fine then, let's play!" Yang said ecstatically as she charged him, punch after punch thrown lead to him blocking almost in a Neo-esc style, he noticed the strength of Yang increasing gradually, he had to delay that.

Starting to now swat away the punches and throw in his own, gradually building speed and strength, this also strengthened Yang, which he noted. Ruby couldn't get a clear shot in. Weiss then decided to join and start raining ice crystals from above. He back flipped taking his katanas and firing a well-placed bullet at each of them and reloading before hitting the ground causing Weiss's eyes to widen as each ice crystal shattered.

Yang used this to her advantage and attempted to slam him to the ground, only for the man to grab a hold of Yang's torso via his legs and proceed to back flip via a handstand, flinging Yang a few meters behind him, now walking towards the remaining three who were firing everything they had at him, he dodged what he could and blocked the rest, what now really surprised them was when he Caught, yes, he Caught, a fireball and threw it back at them. They all managed to stay clear of the resulting explosion, but he was still advancing.

Weiss then threw up an ice wall at his position attempting to trap him, which he seemed to expect, she knew why after a few seconds, before Ruby could slam into him with her Crescent Rose, he jumped, not allowing enough time for Ruby to correct her course and she ran straight through the ice wall, loosing her balance along the way and tripping up, landing next to Weiss, roughed up but not out of the fight.

He continued to advance, blocking an attack from behind from Yang's now not so happy fists, she was starting to overpower him. I need to end her now. He thought to himself as he began attacking with nerve strikes that would only temporarily paralyse parts of Yang, while this made her angrier, that doesn't change the laws biology.

After he hit where he needed, he disorientated her by striking her ears with relaxed hands, Yang's ears were now ringing, she couldn't register the palm strike to the gut quick enough and now had the wind knocked out of her. Before he could knock her out cold though, he felt a small pressure at the base of his spinal column; he turned his head a little, being sure to keep an eye on Yang at the same time.

"Don't move a muscle." Weiss said coldly eliciting a chuckle from the man. "Don't you remember little girl? The Heart is a muscle." In one fell swoop he swatted away the blade and round-house kicked Yang straight in the head effectively knocking her out cold from the impact, if not for her Aura, her skull may have shattered and she may have suffered brain damage or death.

Ruby was already lining up a shot, while the man was trying to deal with Weiss quickly. Ruby then shrugged her shoulders and let out the whole magazine in an accurate flurry of seemingly random shots, not having the patience to aim due to cookie deprivation, each bullet was surprisingly blocked or dodged from the now katana duel-wielding man. "THOSE BULLETS ARE EXPENSIVE, SO STOP BLOCKING THEM OR AT LEAST PRETEND TO BE HURT!" she screamed out of pure annoyance.

At this point it was getting tedious for him, so he decided to make short work of those that were around. Until Blake decided to join the fray. "Ruby give Weiss cover while she gets Yang back to the fire, I'll handle this." Ruby and Weiss were about to protest but went along with it anyway, the shots Ruby fired at him had no effect due to an Aura barrier that sprung up every time, but they did their job and gave Blake enough time to get closer. He smiled behind his helmet. _She's learned._ He thought to himself.

"Think you've learnt to read me have you, Blake...Belladonna wasn't it?" his deep and cyberized voice making him sound all the more creepier. They were now circling each other. "I don't know who you are or how you know my name, but you're not hurting my friends." She was serious, he could only smile wider behind his helmet, after long last, she'd made friends, and he thought he'd never live to see the day.

They both stopped and stared each other down as Yang was now safely by the fire Yang ironically created. Then they each charged, exchanging blows from swords and pistols alike, neither could get the upper hand, so both decided to switch to ranged attacks, both chain and projectile alike.

Taking both of his Shot-saws, he started laying down suppressing fire as he now used both of them as whips, very sharp whips, only for Blake to be able to match every move he made, each strike was almost identical in style, even then it wasn't enough, the speed and strength of every strike was enough for him to eventually break through her defences and send her reeling backwards, impressively enough though, she was still partially on her feet.

He felt a slight brush of wind a little too late, allowing Ruby to get a slash in, even if he wasn't trying, he was still disappointed with himself for being so focused on a singular opponent. He growled at the two in front of him from the annoying feeling Ruby brought. "Ruby...He's too strong." Blake said in between breaths. "We only need to stay up a couple more minutes, Yang is nearly conscious again and Weiss is setting up a trap…" He could only partially hear what they were saying, but during their conversation, he decided to be a little mean and ambush them. _I'm mean._ He thought.

"Wait...Where…" was all he heard Ruby say before the shockwave that he created as he landed between the two sent them flying in either direction of him. He held his ground wanting to see more of what they could do, taking out his katanas' at the same time, one covering his chest and the other, his back, he faced Ruby.

They both charged at the same time, as they were micro-seconds away from successfully attacking him, he front flipped, effectively upper cutting Blake a few centimetres into the air with his foot and landing on top of Ruby's scythe, as she fired, he front flipped over Ruby and swept her from under her feet and knocked her past Blake, then proceeding to kick a recovering Blake next to Ruby. He'd pout if he wasn't in combat. "Tick tock ladies, I don't have all night." He said both truthfully and mockingly, he was used to advanced combat amongst the best, so to say he was slightly underwhelmed was an understatement.

"It's official; he's much faster than me." Ruby said now exhausted as well. "You think?" Blake said in a deadpan and annoyed tone now even more exhausted. But both were thankful when Weiss and Yang showed up, effectively surrounding him. At this he smiled to himself and put away his weapons, hands behind his back in a neutral stance.

At first this confused them, staring directly at Blake the entire time he brought up his hands again, put a fist to his palm and bowed to each of them, Blake and Weiss knew this as a sign of respect and returned the gesture causing Yang and Ruby to stare at the three confused, well until everyone realised that Yang was charging at him, as she was about to punch him, he leaned out the way a little with an elbow out causing Yang to effectively run straight into the elbow.

The second blow was an upper-cut temporarily suspending Yang into mid-air, just after this, he jumped up to Yang and out of the way of a charging Weiss using fire dust, he then proceeded to drop kick Yang straight into the ground so hard it made a small crater, also nearly knocking out Weiss but she remained standing, albeit barely.

Weiss then attempted to catch him off guard only for him to catch the blade, remove it from her hands and kick her to the floor, leaving her lying there groaning from the pain and exhaustion.

He stood at his full height and looked directly at Blake who had her weapon drawn, the dark had only just come to a full bloom and unlike the others, she could see in the dark, as much as she was beat up. He looked at the weapon in her hand, Gambol Shroud, he smiled behind his helmet.

"You made another one...I should've expected that." He whispered to himself still smiling, almost sad from the memories brought back, but proud that she'd come so far. They charged in an almost identical pattern, Ruby was about to charge with Blake but hesitated as the two clashed, the face she made, Blake wore an expression of pure concentration and emotional rage, but underneath it spoke years of training and discipline suddenly coming to the front.

To those spectating that couldn't see very well in the dark, like Ruby, it was nothing short of one of the most beautiful fireworks displays she'd ever seen, there were many flames **(No, not swearing.)** , ice crystals shattering, shotguns and pistols discharging, the battle cries of two immense warriors giving it nothing short of their fullest. This was a stalemate.

Which only ended after a few minutes of intense fighting, Blake was now standing next to an amazed Ruby, literally, you could see it on her face, or was that the cookie deprivation symptoms? I have no clue. What she saw next however, surprised her to no end.

Gambol Shroud, had been sliced in half, barely functional but Blake didn't even seem fazed, she closed her eyes and let out a sigh knowing that she was defeated. "Cease and desist...I have seen enough." His voice boomed. He slowly walked away and seemingly disappeared into the tree line.

Blake just stared at where the eerily familiar warrior had walked off to, then looking at her weapon knowing that she'd have to make another, the only problem with that was that she almost completely forgot how to make most of it, it had been nearly a decade since she had to remake her weapon let alone repair it, normally it was a scratch in the paint.

He was wearing a black short skirted trench coat along with a black Kevlar suit underneath, his helmet or war mask, was interesting, it was more of a black version of a Grimm's bone skull, she noticed the Kanji on his trench coat and helmet but was too busy fighting to read them, she knew he was a Faunus to, no one, not even the most experienced Hunters could fight that well in the dark, unless their semblance included seeing in the dark, which she highly doubted.

Weiss and Yang were over by the fire, Ruby and Blake eventually re-joined them, Yang obviously very, very angry that she'd been beaten and knocked out...TWICE and Weiss was too tired to care anymore. Ruby was the first to break the silence. "Well...at least we got our stuff back." she said cheerfully attempting to lighten the mood. "Good plan by the way." Blake said in a half sad tone. "Thanks...Blake what's wrong? Is it your weapon?" Ruby asked also sounding sad that something so beautiful in Ruby's eyes was destroyed.

"No, I'm fine…" words from when she was a child reverberated through her head 'Don't make anyone a promise, if you know you can't keep it.' the male voice spoke the sentence as if to soothe her mind, but it only brought a sad smile and a tear before continuing to stare at the remains of her weapon. "Es tut mir leid, das Versprechen zu brechen…" she whispered to herself. **("I'm sorry for breaking the promise…")** Weiss was the only one to hear her properly making Weiss wonder what she meant by that.

"Okay, let's all go to sleep, we have a long day tomorrow." Ruby said which elicited everyone to agree in their own way. They each laid down and the fire went out, they each went to sleep peacefully.

Until just before each of them would wake up, they'd each have a dream, a nightmare, someone in pain, his mind slowly cracking from the inside out as something inside him fights his soul, he's losing.

As they see his face they watch him silently scream, clutching his head as they go through his eye, the eye of a Grimm.

Blake awoke with a cold sweat dripping down her forehead, it'd been awhile since she'd seen that boys face, it made Blake a little distraught for his safety, but reasoned with herself saying that he was dead, that she watched him die a very long time ago.

For the moment she shoved it to the back of her mind and looked towards the others who each were curled up into a foetal position each also having a nightmare. _Strange._ She thought to herself.

A few seconds after she noticed this, the sun started to come up, illuminating what most could not see, the local wildlife began to wake up and a man's trench coat changed colour from black to white as if the sun's rays were ink colouring it in, at first she was too tired to register him until he hopped off his perch and back into non-existence, she did register however that it was five in the morning, hence the sunrise.

Then the others woke up, gasping for air each looking around, Blake was mostly fine, if anything a little down, Yang and Ruby were holding onto each other for dear life, shaking silently from the Fear they both experienced and Weiss, was staring at the ashes of the log fire from last night, she was holding back tears.

Each of them had a nightmare, whether it was the same, or similar in principle, they each looked at each other after a while, Yang was the first to speak. "I think I might have to be addicted to coffee for the rest of my life." She said half jokingly to cover up her own pain, no one responded.

But Yang and Ruby were mostly shocked when the one they had been fighting last night simply stood beside Blake, no one daring to move. "I think it's best if you all go home." He said, the voice modulator still active, but there was still a hint of sincerity behind it. No one reacted, until Weiss spoke up. "I won't go home, but I'll gladly stay here for a few more nights, no matter the challenge." She said, still hugging her knees at which almost everyone nodded.

"Start up the fire then." He set down a large basket full of Fish making Blake stare at it for a few seconds. "Before Blake gets her hands on your food." He said half jokingly, the other three staring at Blake who looked thoughtful at the idea considering she hadn't had any Tuna for a long while.

Yang slowly dragged the basket in her direction, away from Blake, who's eyes were glued to it the entire time. Ruby who was still a little upset looked up at their old adversary. "Why are you helping us?" At this everyone looked at him, taking the time to study him carefully. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to evaluate you." He said in a calm monotone.

Everyone stared at him and then at Blake for a few seconds. "So you were right huh?" Yang said in a slightly more chipper voice, keeping Ruby warm between her knees.

The masked Hunter looked at Blake. "You told them?" He asked, causing Blake to nod. "No matter the consequences, it could've meant that my team would've been hurt, and I can't condone that even if Ozpin himself tells me to keep it to myself." Blake said firmly. They didn't know it yet, but he was smiling behind his mask.

"I'm proud of each of you for coming so far in such a short time." He looked at Blake directly in the eyes. "You did the right thing Blume." That sparked something in the back of Blake's mind, staring at him as he walked off towards the tree line in what would seem as a mixture of sadness and awe.

He knew exactly who she was, everything about her, and there were very few people alive that knew alot about her, let alone everything, which didn't make sense at all, only those closest to her would ever call her that. She racked her brain trying to figure it all out but couldn't think of anything at all, she was rudely interrupted by an arrow with a note on it landing next to Yang's leg saying: "Get cooking." Which Blake promptly rolled her eyes at, and Yang just shouted at the tree line some random profanity and something about nearly taking her leg off.

Blake started up the fire again, still plenty of wood left to burn from them poor, poor trees, she strung up the fish to be cooked, as much as she preferred to eat tuna now worry about friends later, she had to do it the other way around, surprisingly enough Weiss and the others sat with Blake, each of them staring at the cooking Fish idly.

Weiss spoke up first. "Blake, last night, you used a dead a language to say "I'm sorry for breaking the promise..." Why is that?" Weiss was in a mix of curiosity and suspicion. "It's a long story." She said calmly, but her voice cracking slightly betrayed her calmness about it.

They each looked at her for a second, Ruby had already fallen back to sleep, Weiss surprisingly wasn't pressing any further. "Did anyone read what was on his coat?" Weiss asked, which Yang responded with. "Those could be read? I thought they were just odd paint thingies." She was cradling the now sound and peacefully sleeping Ruby in her arms. "It's a story." Blake said, Weiss looked at Blake with an eyebrow raised obviously not expecting her to have any knowledge on the subject.

"I didn't know you are an expert at ancient languages Blake." Weiss's half attempt at humour, which made Yang and Blake smile a little. "It's a sad story, but I don't know if it's true or not because I've never heard it before, though it's probably something about his past." Blake said solemnly. "It can wait for now, we've got to eat." Weiss said. "mmmmno." Was Blake's slurred reaction. Which elicited the other two girls to stare at her. "What?" Weiss said. "What?" Blake said in response after snapping out of her stupor while staring at the cooking fish.

"Do you have an addiction to fish by any chance?" Yang asked. "No?..." Blake tried not to make it sound like a question as her voice went a little high pitched, causing Blake to hug her knees out of embarrassment. Surprisingly enough, they each started giggling.

"Duwuhuh, Cookies..." Ruby woke up. Yang was now laughing and even Blake couldn't help but let off an amused snicker, Weiss was giggling and now Ruby was blushing out of embarrassment. Despite what they've all been through, they were all having a laugh, that was what he liked to see.

Team RWBY sat and ate breakfast, Blake more eagerly so, considering what was on the menu disappeared quickly again due to Blake's handiwork.

 **P.O.V. Change**

 **"Despite everything that's happening, you're doing what I want you to, whether you realise it or not."** A higher thought was drilled into his head, it felt like he was being tortured every single time. "You will speak only when spoken to." Obviously agitated at her intrusion in the confines of his mind.

 **"You shall only end up like me if you continue down this path."** The voice said in an almost scolding tone which was met with a dark chuckle. "The difference is, I'm going to destroy you and beat this affliction." To the outsider it would seem as if he was talking to himself, but to him the words the current 'master' of the Grimm spoke were heard clear as day, much to his annoyance.

 **"Then you seal your fate, the professor cannot help you."** Were the last words he heard from the ethereal voice before what felt like an ice cold spike leave his mind. A long sigh escaped his lips. "Cinder...I hope you know what you're doing." He said solemnly obviously missing her, as much as it was hidden behind a mask he wore more to emotionally protect himself than to scare others, the latter was just a bonus.

The plan that would ensue is delicate and he wasn't sure if even he knew the whole thing, or if they were mostly making it up as they were going along, but he put enough trust into Cinder to give her what she needed, as much as they were rudely interrupted by obstacles. Cinder was still learning to, she was about halfway to his power level and much to his amusement and her frustration each time they fought, no where near his skill level despite being older than him by a year.

He'd figured out what happened to him at the temple, mostly, a culmination of several thousand years of knowledge were forced into his mind along with physical enhancements and a new semblance, switching off his own semblance and replacing it with something much more uncontrollable, but he was managing, trying to train himself to control something so dangerous was difficult and at times he had to vent the pent up energy on something, preferably Grimm, even then it still 'echoed' to nearby living things though not even close to being as bad as what he put what he focussed on through, mostly pure Terror.

Everything comes at a price however and his mind is taking the brunt of the damage, nothing could scare him because flat out he could feel no Fear, none, it was as if the Amygdala part of his brain stopped functioning.

He sighed, that wasn't everything either, he could easily use his semblance to create a beacon for Grimm to follow, he could lure them into a trap, or to a location with four girls sitting around a camp-fire munching on breakfast.

Like now.

* * *

 **Cliffhanger...plz don't kill me...*hides under my desk peeking slightly***

 **Ruby's cookie deprivation happens to me when I don't have any either :/**

 **Fun Fact: The Amygdala is a part of the brain that makes you feel Fear in response to certain situations, people that have had Urbach-Wiethe disease cannot feel Fear, it isn't debilitating either, it just means they can look at a gun being pointed at their face and roll their eyes in boredom, both cool and bad,** **I do and don't envy those people.**

 **If you're wondering, no, I'm not a medical genius or a genius of any kind, though my squad-mates are inclined to disagree with me because of my slight knowledge in military tactics, I'm just a guy who knows alot and needs to find a way to distract himself from a world i severely dislike, besides you guys, you guys are great!**

 **I hope you all enjoyed, don't forget to review to tell me what you thought, if you've got any helpful tips, tricks or ideas feel free to leave those as well, or if you want general banter and to have a conversation** **via reviews, you can do that to,** **or point out every single little Easter egg i plant for you to hunt for, also works. Make sure you favorite if you liked it and to Follow if you want to see more from me, I am TimoremCordeNostro and I shall see you my awesome audience (har har) in the next chapter!**


	4. Team Building Exercise' Part 2

**Hello everybody, I am TimoremCordeNostro and welcome back to RWBY: Fallen from the Rise.**

 **As always constructive criticism is always welcome, this was written with my brilliant Beta-reader and co-writer Billmastergamin115, so a big special thanks to meine Freund!**

 **Cann is pronounced _Sh-awn_ or _Sh-aan._**

 **WARNING: - This Fic contains scenes that young people may find disturbing, please bare in mind the rating of this fic is an approximation and I am not responsible for anything that happens or anything caused by this fic, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

 **I hope you enjoy aaaaaaaaaaaaand let's do this!**

 **End Authors Note.**

* * *

 **Several hundred seconds after previous events.**

He opened his eyes, not reacting to the sudden brightness and resulting blurriness that assaulted his eyesight, even then everything quickly cleared up. The Emerald Forest, as its name suggests, the large woodland is covered with the emerald coloured foliage of trees, grass, brushes and more, the flowers and tree bark added their own colours to the palette making it a striking sight.

You could almost be lost here, in somewhere untouched by the worries and greyness of the world. But most of the beauty of this place was lost on Cann, he'd spent his life practicing two arts, two skills, Life and Death. He may have learned many different methods of taking someone's life, but he also knew how to give life to someone, to save them if he so needed, because in reality he knew that in some scenarios it was better to be dead than alive. That and if those he cared about were injured, he would make it his ultimate priority that they recover to full health.

His mind had wandered when he didn't want it to, habits of a child that never had a chance to play. Instead he spent his life learning and fast, he had to protect those closest to him where his parents could not, even with their death he didn't have time to grieve, he could only take on the sobbing child and raise her as best he could by himself, his only childhood friend helping him however he had to, which he was ultimately thankful for.

That friend however, was someone he could no longer go near, let alone give the honor of what few moments he had spare. Looking back on it all he'd wondered how he didn't spot the signs earlier, the signs of someone slowly becoming power hungry and delusional. But at the same time, he couldn't blame him, the prospect of accepting that your only friend had become quite literally, a sociopath, would've been something even his elder self would refuse to accept.

Another thing to bare in mind is that the views his friend took are ones that he himself partially agreed on because of his logical look at the world. But he is not without morals and knows that the path that his old friend pursues is the wrong way of getting what so many wanted. What many continue to fight and die for, thankfully though, it would soon end.

His mind would've gone deeper into that area if he didn't realise that the students he was meant to be observing were completely unawares of everything in the shadows, until they all had that hazy tingling at the back of their neck, which they listened to. They each took up a stance, one of them unarmed, watching for whatever would rise from the shadows to challenge them. An Ursa major stepped out of the foliage proceeding to stand on its hind legs and roar at them, obviously not a very happy bear.

 **P.O.V. Switch**

"Awwww what's the matter, bee's steal your honey?" Yang said in a mocking tone prompting a giggle from Ruby at her sister's antics. The Ursa charged at Yang only to receive an uppercut at the exact right moment prompting Ruby to fire two shots from her Crescent Rose into the throat of the Ursa making it slowly disintegrate. "That's not all of them." Blake said in her usual monotone.

"Good, I need something to punch after last night." Yang said, her eyes turning crimson for a few seconds before turning their usual shade of lilac. "Weren't the trees enough?" Weiss threw in her own two cents, leading everyone to give off their own smirk or giggle, she had a point though, the clearing had gotten bigger since yesterday. By this point all varieties of Grimm started to pour out of the tree line leading the team to step back a little, Creeps were the first wave, easily taken down by a few slices and punches, or more specifically, Yang charging them head on and punching them all into the ground until there was basically nothing but goop.

As the Grimm horde started becoming more numerous by the second, they found themselves slowly being overwhelmed. Ruby was doing her best to hack and slash every Beowolf and creep that came her direction but for each one dead, three more appeared, soon enough they each had to start slowly retreating as ten soon turned to fifty incredibly quickly leading Cann to have to intervene, though not much intervention was needed.

Weiss was managing to pick off those that strayed around them, laying traps for those that were stupid enough not to look at their feet, if they didn't, incineration was to be expected. Ruby and Yang were at the front, holding the line steadily with many shell casings being expelled. Blake felt almost useless, but without a weapon, she knew it was best if she did not engage. Until, that is, she was given a weapon, one that would match her style in a way.

Cann was stood next to Blake silently and proceeding to hand her one of his shot-saws. "Not a scratch Ms. Belladonna." He said as Blake proceeded to examine the weapon before joining the heat of battle, using the shot-saw in the exact same manner she would've used Gambol Shroud, slicing and dicing everything to pieces, as well as explosive fire dust rounds for that extra oomph.

With Blake running off to do her own thing, Cann stood there and watched idly incase any needed help, seemingly not noticing the two Beowolves and Beowolf Alpha charging at him, until one was directly in front of him attempting to chomp his head off. Instead, it chomped air as Cann cartwheeled backwards, kicking the Beowolf across the face disorientating it. The second Beowolf attempted to cleave him in half as he got to his feet again only to have it's hand cut off by large and jagged wrist blades, he proceeded to slice the Beowolfs face into three sections killing it instantly. Cann barely had time to dodge the attack coming from the Beowolf Alpha and use its large form against it as he kicked it straight into the gut to springboard himself away from the remaining two.

The younger remaining Beowolf charged at him again only to receive a katana through the throat and half its throat was soon removed as he jumped over the youngling, which removed most of the meat in that area, leaving it to choke to death and leaving him with the Alpha Beowolf. He smirked behind his mask as he charged the Alpha, as it surprisingly held its ground, but unfortunately, this would only serve his needs as he blocked a swipe from the Alpha and jumped wrapping his legs around the Beowolf Alphas throat, using both his momentum and strength to bring it down onto it's back, he proceeded to fire a single explosive shell from his remaining shot-saw into the throat practically removing it's whole neck from existence and effectively decapitating it. All three bodies disintegrated at the same time.

Ruby stood there and 'woahed' at the display Cann had put on, demonstrating a superior mind against superior numbers. She was brought out of this train of thought when an Ursa Major attempted to cleave Ruby in half, managing to dodge this and get off a couple of shots however, serving to piss it off heavily, which became evident as it roared at her. "Eh oh." she said as she rolled out the way of another swipe, she used her Semblance to speed up to it and catch its throat with her scythe, after a good two seconds of pulling as hard as she could the Ursa majors head was cleaved clean off.

Weiss was not having a good day. Her favorite dress is dirty and has a few holes in it, she hasn't slept in a bed for a few days, she never thought she would miss those damn bunk beds. She was also running out of dust, much to her annoyance. Luckily enough though, every incendiary glyph put down was used to great effect, Beowolves, Creep and Ursa alike were burned to a crisp. She charged a pair of Creep, cleaving it in half, much to her surprise, and blocked the attacks from the Creep behind her proceeding to hack and slash it to pieces. And now to her 'favorite' Grimm, a Boarbatusk.

Remembering from the last time she fought the annoying little thing. She stood her ground, getting into stance, waiting for the Boarbatusk to charge, she managed a smirk as she lowered her guard, why she did this became evident as the Boarbatusk set alight in an almost beautiful cacophony of flames and the smell of bacon. Weiss gave a dark chuckle at that. I don't think she'll last more than 7 days.

Yang was having a workout with this fight, for once she was breaking a sweat and that was rare, or at least she liked to think so. Beating down Beowolves and Ursas was fun and all, but she also liked punching something bigger every once in awhile, like Deathstalkers, or more specifically, the one she was beating right now. Dodging the tail spike once again, she managed to slip through the guard the Deathstalker had up and proceed to pound the head of the large 'ish Grimm and pound it hard, the shotgun rounds also aiding in making large cracks in the surprisingly tough armour for such a young Grimm. Making all the grunting noises that would insinuate her punching as hard as she could. Though that didn't help anything besides fan-service...I mean motivation...no that still doesn't sound right, ah fuck it move on...how do you make it worse than Yang can unintentionally?

She was eventually swatted away by one of the huge pincers making her give off an 'ooof' and land next to Ruby. At this moment Blake landed on top of where the blonde brawler had made the cracks and proceeded to fire a few explosive rounds removing more armour. Before the Deathstalker could swat away Blake like it did Yang however, she drove the saw blade of the shotgun into the brain of the Deathstalker, killing it nearly instantly.

Blake retreated back to the others as Weiss sliced a Boarbatusk in half. "Everyone in a line!" Ruby said, leading her and the others to notice that the Horde started to thin out, much to the confusion of the team of youngsters, until they spotted the rather large and surprisingly lone Goliath stepping through the trees to see what's going on. After examining the team for a few seconds, it huffed and started slowly walking towards them eliciting the team to get into a combat stance. The Goliath paused a few metres away from the team however, staring down one person who slowly walked a few centiremetres in front of the youngsters, in the centre of them all.

He stared straight back into the eyes of the Goliath, the eyes would look like they were visibly vibrating, but if you saw those eyes, you would never talk again. The symbols on his mask and jacket glowing brightly, the Goliath started shaking, until Cann raised a hand to the Goliath and it simply paused, as if it were encased in ice. Cann then proceeded to take a single Katana seemingly out of thin air and walk towards the Goliath, stopping in front of it and putting two fingers on its head, closing his eyes.

 _Angst haben._ Were the only words he needed to think before the Goliaths mind was filled with foreign yet oh so familiar images and thoughts, even if it was the negative emotion it fed off, it found itself overwhelmed as its mind started falling apart, as if a revolution were taking place in its poor fragile mind. Before long it couldn't do anything, it felt alone, locked away in a cage it was so used to being trapping prey inside...Fear.

The bone on the Goliath started shattering as it let out an ear piercing screech, causing everyone besides Cann to cover their ears, he didn't even twitch. The Goliath soon started cracking like glass, until the screech ended abruptly, the Goliath shattering and disintegrating into the wind as Cann shoved his sword where he placed his finger like lightning, after a couple seconds he fell to one knee, his heart going several hundred miles a minute.

Team RWBY simply stared at the Hunter wide eyed in silence, getting a cold icy feeling crawling up there spines into the back of their minds, giving them a headache and making them shiver, Yang broke the silence. "Well that was...smashing." Yang could only smirk at her own humour as the still partially breathless Hunter walked past Yang. "God I hate puns." He stopped in front of Blake and held out a hand. "My weapon, if you please?" He asked respectfully with a slight bow eliciting her to give it to him with a straight face, as usual.

Before he could disappear however, he was asked a question. "Who are you?" He paused and turned his head slightly. "You'll find out." The words were as reassuring as they were cryptic, but it still made Blake smile, a good, half smile, an uncommon kind, but not a full smile, those were rare. He slowly walked into the tree line, tossing a box filled with treats next to the log seats, Ruby was already there devouring them in the space of a few seconds. "Thankd youb!" she shouted with her mouth partially full.

But with that, Blake had made a good point, he hadn't thought about what got him to this point, to become the man he is now. A long and painful process? or a short and agonizing one? Depends how you perceive time and how you would react to everything in his life. Shake your head and want nothing to do with him? or hug him and tell him that everything will be okay? Either way his reaction would be the same, he would move on, weapon in hand, cutting down or negotiating with every obstacle in his way, that or he'd just walk through it as if it weren't there.

 **5 days later.**

The team had just finished breakfast, before Ruby called the usual morning meeting. "First things first, the Professor watching over us has not given me another box of cookies in five days!" She now wore her grumpy face, which only someone like Ruby could accomplish. Everyone rolled their eyes as they'd heard this every morning since that moment, that and since none of them 100% knew who Cann was, they settled on calling him a Professor since he was technically teaching them...in an unorthodox method to say the least.

Grumpy face nearly instantly switched to cheerful. "Secondly, Blake has notified me that our rations are starting to run short due to lack of things to eat that we'll survive on." Ruby continued to list off things until she said this. "Is there anything else that needs to be said before we continue with everyday boredom?" Her usual cheerful tone all the way. "We can't survive out here in a few days time..." Blake said with her eyes closed, obviously tired since she was the one on watch last night, which they all quickly learned was necessary when they figured out Cann liked to use the night to steal from them, every so often leading Grimm their direction.

"Really? I never noticed." Weiss said, sarcasm dripping like venom from her voice. "To be honest now I'm never not going to miss those bunk beds." Making everyone be thoughtful for a few seconds. "Well, you can tell me when you want to go back to Beacon whenever you want." He said with a mouthful of cooked meat leading them all to say "No!" At the same time, they'd become so prideful over this. "And what are you even doing here?" Ruby asked. "Stealing food." He said while continuing to eat. "But you're eating it." Weiss said obviously annoyed. "Well, you don't get to eat it and I'm hungry so...yeah..." He continued to eat the last of their venison, Team RWBY glaring daggers at him as he did so, the mask soon fully covering his mouth again.

"That was the last of the meat." Blake said in a deadpan tone. Then they all tackled him and started trying their best to punch him and kick him where the sun don't shine. Right up until he forced them all away from him with palm strikes, they each went for their weapons glaring at him with further anger leading him to make a dark chuckle. "Ooooo did I piss you all off?" He asked with a mocking tone, voice modulator, as always, active, making him sound demonic in nature, but this only got on their nerves more.

They all charged him at the same time, Cann was unable to counter everyone despite his speed, Ruby proofing too fast for him at the time as she sliced and shot at him getting a few hits in, Yang and Weiss were his primary focus, blocking everything Yang threw at him and being sure to avoid trap glyphs, though it still worked as a disadvantage since he had limited room to move. Blake also attempted to get hits in, Weiss was doing her best to speed up the momentum of their attacks as well as set traps, all of their attacks were effective, knocking Cann about, he was soon knocked to the side, ever so slightly pissed off now, even though he knew he only brought this on himself.

"You each brought this upon yourselves." Were the last semi-friendly and ironic words before he started taking each of them down quickly and efficiently, starting off with Ruby to shatter their morale to a million pieces. He gut punched her knocking the wind out of her before launching a powerful kick, sending her back a few metres before seemingly teleporting over to a stunned Weiss and slamming his knee into her face pretty much instantly knocking her out cold, if he'd used anymore force, she'd probably be in a lot more pain.

He turned to Blake and Yang, Blake was slightly shocked but still got into stance, Yang however, wasn't quite as calm, far from it, just an itty bitty bit angry...just a little. "You lay a hand on Ruby, you're dead." Her words were the living threat of death, quiet, he just proceeded to push her to the edge and placed the tip of his pinkie finger on Ruby's gut. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" She shouted before they charged each other, Yang only building up power with anger as each blow exchanged was met with equal ferocity and speed.

Yang attempting to only pound his skull into mush, could only continue using the same set of punching motions over and over again, each were blocked and swatted away but every often he had to catch a punch to stop it from hitting him, using his Aura to stop his hands from burning and the bones in each hand from shattering, he could never retaliate as Yang never seemed to run out of energy.

Until Yang's attitude would only serve to push Cann to unexpected lengths. "You've never felt pain!" And now began the hallucinations, as everything went black and white for him, memories of blood, sweat, tears and held back pain bottled into the equivalent of the Tsar Bomba. "You've never felt pain, I'll tear your Family apart, you've got no idea what we've been through!" Were some of the words that echoed throughout his mind, his whisper was one that would seal the deal. "I'll show you pain." The low calmness of it made Yang pause.

She didn't even respond as he hit her with a push so fast and powerful Yang was forced back next to Blake flat on her back. "I don't know what it's like to lose family huh?" He asked, a whole range of emotions starting to steam through his body, he started to laugh a little. "Then please, enlighten me...as to anything you've been through could possibly compare to me...you've never watched your only friend turn into a monster...you've never been forced away from your family...never had to build everything in your life from the ground up...never discriminated from birth...never had everything you fought so hard for crumble in one swift set of events...you've never been forced to watch everything you love die...over and over and over again...until you just...Snap." The words were spoken with a hatred, sadness and madness only matched by those who have spent their life being taken apart and put back together again through torturous means.

"You wanna know something about pain that I taught myself...it doesn't hurt..pain doesn't hurt, love hurts." In a flash he was holding Yang in the air by the throat every punch and kick from Yang not even grazing him despite Yang being at full strength. After Yang fell unconscious due to lack of oxygen he dropped her, the trench coat arm Yang had been punching torn to smithereens, bruising starting to appear all up his arm, swelling a little. Blake could only stare at him horror-struck. "Please don't make that face...it makes me feel dead inside." He said as a single tear made its way down the mask as he looked at Blake.

"I have to call Beacon to get you all home...Yang broke my arm...more shattered though." He said, his voice was trembling slightly but nothing to suggest that he was in pain. Despite everything that had transpired, Blake just put a hand on his shoulder, she knew that it was the only thing she could do. Cann sat down on the grass letting out more silent tears. "I know what it's like to have family torn away from you...to watch someone turn into a monster...to be discriminated against, to watch everything you've fought for dissolve." Blake looked up at him with a reassuring smile as much as she was scared, she really did know his pain and despite her feelings, on the inside she knew that everything that he just said, had been bottled up for so very long, and she had to respect that.

He looked at Blake. "I know...I know...and I'm glad you're trying to rebuild it." He said quietly before taking out his scroll and pressing a few buttons signalling that it was time for a Bullhead to pick them up. "Careful...my arm is broken in four different places." It was meant as humour as much as it didn't sound like it. He shared what food and water he had left, healing the others however he could, they each eventually woke up to find him and Blake staring at the fire, they were all pissed at him but he couldn't blame them. He explained that the Bullhead would be here to pick them up in a few hours and over that time the tension grew less and less to the point everyone was neutral.

"Professor, what does the text on your clothing say? Blake here said it was a story, I'm curious." Weiss eventually asked. "Well...I'm not a Professor and call me Arbiter...Professor makes me sound old." They each stared at him.

"Wait...as in...The Arbiter...the legendary guardian of justice?..." Yang asked almost dumbstruck. He shook his head tiredly "Why does everyone look so surprised when they find out these things and who comes up with the contradictory subtitles?..." He asked himself sarcastically. **(** **I second that.)** Everyone stared directly at him. He looked at each of them for a couple of seconds. "What?" He asked. "Sorry, for staring...but you're not what any of us were..." "Expecting?" He finished Weiss's sentence. "I was trying to be polite, but yes, that does sum it up."

"It doesn't bother me any." "What's an Arbiter?" Ruby asked causing the others to look at Ruby who now felt like she was in the spotlight. "To some people I'm just a local legend and to others I'm a sociopathic vigilante that's been a thorn in the law enforcements side for a few hundred years." "So...I'm going to try not to explode out of both excitement and anxiety!" Yang said obviously trying to keep herself in check, Cann just sighed. "Let it out." He said with a sigh to the girl that broke his arm not but a few hour ago. Just as Yang was about to ask the 'are you sure?' question however. "Before I change my mind."

"Before Yang goes crazy, can you answer my original question please?" Weiss was now a bit more respectful being in the presence of someone she now knew to be leagues above her if she couldn't tell from when he fought her anyway. "The text? Ah...it's a story about a boy..." He started as each of them started getting comfortable to listen to the warrior of ages speak.

"The boy in this story was smart and strong for his age...but even children can only take so much."

 _ **Flashback.**_

 _Another day._ Were the words a boy used to reassure himself, to keep the tears and emotion down from what the adult and child humans alike would call him and tell him what they'd do to him, the factory wasn't a nice place, but it helped his family, so he would endure.

The walk home was as usual, slightly exhausting, as he used the rooftops to avoid alleyways and streets, it was also the chance to keep himself in shape. He opened the door of the shared house and saw a masked human male about to pick up his sister, in a split second, he could hear everything every human had told him and he just...Snapped.

He dug his claws into the back of his knee leading the man to kneel and punched his face into the stone wall and proceeded to use a knife from the kitchen to stab. Stab. Stab. Stab. And no matter what happened, how much the man struggled, how much he screamed, how much he drowned in his own blood, or even when the reactions were reduced to twitches of the force he used to stab the man, he didn't. Stop. Stabbing.

After he realised that his little sister was crying, he stopped, shoved the knife into one of the eye sockets and proceeded to pick up his sleeping sister and cuddle her making her smile up at him causing him to smile as a tear dropped.

It was a few hours later, when the child had fallen asleep safely, wrapped up and in the arms of her slightly older brother, when their parents had returned home to the sight of him holding her protectively, with the masked rotting corpse of someone laying slumped against the wall.

Instead of running away, reprimanding him or disowning him, they took him upstairs into his little sisters room and lay him with her, making sure he went to sleep before going back to the current situation.

The peaceful sleep was short-lived however, when he awoke, to look outside and see a sea of people, torches, weapons of all kind, attempting to get in the house. By the time they reached the room he and his sister were in however, they had disappeared completely.

He looked at the place he used to call home from a distance before he started walking, and he didn't stop walking for lord knows how long, because by the time he noticed that his feet were bleeding, he was in Forever Fall. From that point forward, he set up a home for them as best he could, with what little his family used to have, he still used to go camping with his father.

Over the course of a few weeks, it would be quiet, until someone found them, the red hair however was a welcome sight for the boy as he knew him well, explaining that he thought they were dead and the people he'd been with were searching everywhere for him.

He ended up packing his things and taking along his still thankfully healthy sister to a camp, where they were medically treated and fed, he'd learned that the place was a peaceful refuge for 'miss-treated' Faunus like himself and his sister, there was something he could put his thanks into now, the people that took him and his sister in. He trained his body to survive everything thrown at him, whether it hurt him or not, he taught himself to use a variety of weapons and taught others to.

Even during the years, he'd still grow up to watch, raise and teach his little sister, when he couldn't, his best friend would, she developed her own perspective and moral standpoint in the world as he also did.

One day he was asked by his friend why he doesn't seek retribution for anything that has happened to him. His simple reply was: "Why should I seek retribution for something that has only made me stronger? For retribution for their crimes would only make me seem like the animal they call me, why would I give them the right to make their words ring true in the ears of others? Yes I want to kill them all, to burn them until their world is but glass...but who really has the right to do that?"

For most, this would make them admire him. But for his friend, this meant that he would have to go, if he would not see the truth, then he would not be around to see it come to fruition. So he waited until a day he went hunting, tailing him unknowing that the boy was aware of him already, leading him to a cliff edge.

Without resistance, the boy simply smiled at his friend who hid in the bushes as a human Hunter shoved the sword through his chest and pushed him off.

 _ **Flashback end.**_

"There's a quote that particularly inspired me...'I have had the weight of a civilizations hopes and dreams on my shoulders, my bones shatter under that weight. But I still walk to my liberation and never seek retribution, as I am stronger than I was before.'" He quoted.

"Ms. Belladonna there's a reason why I know who you specifically are." He said and Blake could only stare him in his eyes, which were fixed on the fire. "I only wish you've found peace at your brothers death..." Blake however knew that the story was a partial lie, that he knew but didn't want to share, but decided not to ask or think about it as she would break down the moment she continued to think about it.

The others were a bit more down now as they refrained from looking at Blake as they learned a little bit more about her, they seemingly missed that it hinted more of her past, more focused on the loss of family part. A good twenty minutes had passed since the story had been told and Weiss was regretting asking.

"Can you show me your wrist blades?..." Yang asked obviously been waiting to ask that for a long while. He rolled his eyes, without him moving jagged blades extended from his arms from under the trench coat. **(Think of Predators wrist blades.)**

"Oh that's so cool." Ruby said nearly awestruck. Before they retracted and he took out one of his katana's from seemingly nowhere and holding it by the blade to Ruby who was holding it with wide eyes. "Careful, it's sharp." Ruby only smiled more as she examined the weapon, it was just like a traditional black katana, but the barrel of a gun had been made inside the blade seamlessly, it was a beautiful work of craftsmanship, the magazine of dust rounds at the bottom of the hilt, there was a tiny black block signifying the end of it.

"I've never seen someone fight like you do, where and what were you trained?" Weiss asked. He paused, thoughtful for a second before shaking his head. "Self-taught in my spare time and I based it off many martial arts to form what is essentially a mixture of Sambo, Jeet Kune Do, Systema and Taekwondo. " He said simply making Weiss tilt her head. "Fast strong strikes used to either disable or kill, excellent for multi-purpose but anyone smart enough will be able to read me, until I adapt to the situation and switch through them at seemingly random and rapid pace, I'm strong enough to make each strike hurt, the only people who could beat me if they tried, so far, are Yang and Ozpin...a dusty old Qrow came close once." Yang and Ruby grinned that.

It was Ruby's turn in twenty questions. "How many Grimm and bad guys have you taken down!?" She asked excitedly. "19,869 disabled...I lost count of how many dead...I'll leave that for you to decide whether I took down that many Grimm or bad guys." Ruby had to ask the second question on her mind. "When did you meet my Uncle Qrow?" He looked over to her in surprise. "He's your uncle?" She nodded quickly. "And Yang's to, how did you both meet?" He simply smiled at her, remembering why, very well. "That's a story for another time, when you see your uncle again, tell him I said Autumn." He smirked at his own joke, Ruby and Yang wearing the same confused looks on their faces.

"What's your name?" Blake asked, she'd remained mostly unfazed on the outside, her curiosity about him could only grow as did the emotion inside, and he couldn't blame her, he always responded with the same thing though. "You'll find out soon enough...come...let's get aboard the Bullhead." As he said this, a Bullhead pulled up overhead and landed close by, they each got on board and as the doors closed he turned to Blake who was climbing into one of the bunks in the cargo hold, since this Bullhead was loaded specifically for Team RWBY.

He laid in the bunk across from her and soon fell asleep, as much as he didn't want to. He woke up with a cold sweat, mask still on Yang trying to creep on him, unaware that he's now awake, Blake just has a raised eyebrow at her. "What are you up to Yang?" I asked as she blushed and instantly and quietly switched to the opposite direction and walked back to the others.

"They want to remove your mask." Blake said simply. "They can try but they won't get anywhere unless they want to tear my skull off." Blake raised an eyebrow at him. "The mask folds into the base of my skull." He turned enough for Blake to see the back of his neck and he pointed to what looked like a white block shaped patch of skin on the back of his neck. "Feeds directly into the nervous system, most people with cybernetics have them." "Why do you have one?" He paused and looked at the others then at Blake. "I'll tell you what...I tell you that, you tell them about your past." Blake's eyes widened. "There's a reason why I didn't mention any Names." He said staring directly into Blake's eyes. "I will...soon...when I'm ready." He looked up at the ceiling at that, narrowing down thousands of scenarios of how this could play out. "I hope that's soon...otherwise you may be forced to reveal it."

 _How does he know and what does he mean?_ Were some of the thoughts running frantically through her mind at the moment. The amount of knowledge the Arbiter possessed was very unsettling for her and he kept dodging the 'who are you?' Question. "Arbiter?" "Mmm?" "Why won't you answer the question?" He knew what she meant by that. "Because right now..." He looks into her soul. "...you're not ready."

 **Several hours later, after many questions from Yang, some of them embarrassing.**

"Why did you ask me that?" "I was curious." Yang said innocently causing everyone to roll their eyes. "Do you have a girlfriend?" Yang asked causing him to give her a look that said 'really?' "Yes I do..." They all tilted their head at that, obviously not expecting someone like him to be romantically involved with anyone, let alone anyone to be romantically interested in him. "What's she like?" Ruby asked, at that you could basically feel his smile behind the mask. "Beautiful, persuasive, graceful, kind when she wants to be, honest when she needs to be." Yang could only smirk. "Uh huh, but not innocent." At this Cann facepalmed in embarrassment as did Blake and Weiss, Ruby looking hopelessly lost at the innuendo. As they each realized that the Bullhead had landed, they grabbed their things and made their way to exit the Bullhead to find Ozpin waiting for them.

"Professor Ozpin, what a surprise." Cann said offhandedly with an edge of sarcasm. "Arbiter, Team RWBY." he greeted. the Team of youngsters stood in a line. "Welcome back." His smile always remained the same and that tea mug always remained full, I could use one of those. "Arbiter, did by any chance our agent let the information loose?" Ozpin asked leading him to nod. Blake stepped forward. "I told them because it concerned the teams safety and as a result I had to tell them, I won't betray the trust they put in me and I won't put them in danger willingly." Ozpin only smiled more.

"Good." "I don't care what pun- wait what?" At this, Cann spoke up. "That's what we wanted you to do." And then it all made sense to her. A 'Team Building Exercise.' Trust was a part of it as well as team cohesion. Everything about this was a test. "I'm confused." Ruby said. "The entire exercise was created to test each of you, trust, cohesion, survival etc. Are all things that are tested in first year students, I had to go through it, so do the others and you." Blake brightened up a little at that and so did the others, understanding fully. "I think a day off is a suitable reward don't you think professor?" At this Ozpin simply nodded. "Indeed, for the rest of today and tomorrow, you may miss classes as a rest period." The whole Team beamed at that and were dismissed to their dorm room.

"Are you sure you're ready?" Ozpin asked. "Professor...how long have you known me?" He simply smiled at that, Ozpin always had a place for old students such as Cann, to see him come back after a while and willing to help with his current predicament was a breathe of fresh air for him. "What do you think of them?" Ozpin asked, at this Cann paused. "They have alot of potential, the equivalent of what CRMN showed all those years ago, give them time, they'll become the next CRMN anyway." Ozpin continued smiling, thankful that he atleast seemed to be able to cope with his old teams subsequent death a few years ago. "Anything else I should know?" Ozpin asked. "Ruby." Ozpin raised an eyebrow mentally at that. "Silver eyes...she is an odd one." He said. "Ruby Rose, she showed potential so she has been 'taken in' early." Ozpin said, at this Cann responded with a 'Hm'.

Cann turned his head to Ozpin, his mask folding into tiny squares and lodging itself into the back of his head. "What's been happening since i've been gone?" He asked. "White Fang activity has suddenly started shifting as has Grimm activity, ever since the name 'Arbiter' started appearing again a month ago." Ozpin said with a tiny mock accusatory tone. "I got bored." was his humored reply. "Speaking of White Fang, if I find anything, I'll let you know." Ozpin nodded appreciatively. "Cann." "Hmm?" "Go get your arm looked at." "Yes dad." Was Canns sarcastic reply as he started walking off.

Ozpin continued staring out into the open world, inhaling the fresh air and steam from his tea, eventually walking back to his office, likely to refill the tea he just drank, though I doubt he ran out of the stuff, he never does.

* * *

 **The Greybox Unknown Date and Time.**

"That's how you met Team RWBY?" Ironwood asked slightly surprised. "Well at least It was a happy confrontation." Cann said with sarcasm causing Ironwood to go back to his neutral expression, this was almost like a game for him, Ironwood feels emotion, goes to neutral, then gets on his grumpy diapers. "Is there anything I missed?" He asked. "Were you listening?" He didn't look happy at that, I told you he'd go grumpy.

"Where did you get the story at the fire from?" Cann rolled his eyes thinking it was an attempt at humor and Ironwood remained silent, at this he started laughing. "Really? You don't know? Bwahahahahahhahahahahaha." Ironwood was getting slowly and slowly more frustrated to the point he started tapping the table with his fingers in a pattern. "What is your name?" He asked and at this Cann managed to stifle his laughter, at least to the point of snickering. "Tsk Tsk tsk, General, General, Geeeeeneeeeralll...that would be spoiling the story." he said with a mocking tone. "Let's start with what happened after that." He said still chuckling darkly.

* * *

 **I'm sorry if the 'Team Building Exercise' thing felt kinda short but I had I had to introduce Team RWBY and Cann somehow.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed, don't forget to review to tell me what you thought, if you've got any helpful tips, tricks or ideas feel free to leave those as well, or if you want general banter and to have a conversation** **via reviews, you can do that to,** **or point out every single little Easter egg i plant for you to hunt for, also works. Make sure you favorite if you liked it and to Follow if you want to see more from me, I am TimoremCordeNostro and I shall see you my awesome audience (har har) in the next chapter! Cheerio!**


	5. The Night Before the Fun Begins

**Evening, atop an isolated rooftop of Beacon.**

This was a good time to come outside for a thinking session, to clear the mind of any worries, fears or stress in general. The lack of noise besides a shallow wind breeze, the gentle feeling of sunlight gracefully slipping away, like a soft hand cupping her face slowly fading as the perfect orange glow of the sun finally starts to go to its slumber along with the diurnal creatures of the known lands. Then out come the nocturnal creatures, often considered monsters or strange creatures that inspire fascination or fear in the hearts and minds of others.

But it was also time for Ruby to clear her mind, to think about all the many wonders of the world. Deep breaths, in and out, in, out, the sound of Jean Michelle Jarre's Oxygene album playing in her ears. The silence and prosperity of the night was broken however when Ruby noticed something that vaguely resembled gunfire in the distance. So now her curious mind was left with a choice. Option Eins: stay there and continue to think in peace. Or option Zwei: Investigate what is causing all the ruckus.

I'll give you three guesses.

Ruby smirked to herself turning off her calming music and making sure Crescent Rose was safe in her holster before bolting from rooftop to rooftop in a zig zag fashion to the old industrial district close to the slums of Vale. A mixture of dark, ugly browns and grays lined walls and buildings everywhere, along with the horrid smell of rotting God knows what, making Ruby cringe internally, she didn't want to know. Ruby found herself standing above an old warehouse being used by some armed people, likely not meant to be here, so she sat and she watched, waiting for the source of earliers gunfire to come to light.

 **P.O.V. Switch**

Tonight was supposed to be a good night. Bob, as this man was unceremoniously named, was having the equivalent of a field day when he and his band of criminals received a large amount of money and dust in return for some military grade hardware. This was a couple weeks ago. Now he was getting scared at the fact that every single man under his employment outside of the warehouse perimeter had stopped reporting in. What actually frightened him was that any man he sent out the gates wouldn't come back, that and the last man to be sent out did in fact fire a few shots before nothing, not a peep, not even silence.

He ordered a complete lockdown, nobody gets in or out, but his fears were now heightened to new levels however when gunfire started emanating from outside.

 **P.O.V. Switch**

"One..." He ended the countdown before his custom made chemical explosives, yes, Chemical, not Dust, exploded. BOOM, that was the signal for him to drop to the ground from the zip-line he was hanging from, leading to the over-watch towers now behind him to fall over in separate balls of flames, the men inside of them launched passed him at a perfect angle colliding into a pair of men a few meters away from him, every man outside looked in his direction to see what many criminals feared or knew the name of, some murmuring his hard earned title, or silent.

Glowing red dust symbols all over a black trench coat, burning brightly as a beacon of the future for these unfortunate souls. They could could see the Wesker like Kevlar vest over a completely black shirt, or skin, no one could tell. The mask, and eyes were the very things that would lead every man there to hear an demonic whisper originating from seemingly everywhere at once. "You each stare at the body of death...my words are the poison." but nothing visibly moved on the mask as the figure stood to his full height.

At this point they all just started firing their weapons at him, only to find the figure fizzle out like a flame dying. At first they kept staring where he was before they heard the grunts of men fallen behind them, two men lay on the floor with wounds entering their chest and exiting their backs, through the heart before disappearing in a plume of smoke. Now that they were all panicking they started to spread out in three small groups. Big mistake.

The only thing the first group could do to delay their demise was fire at the shadows seemingly lashing out at them, one of them was left without hands before having a tiny knife stick out of his skull, the dull thud as his corpse hit the floor was muffled by the sobs of a man.

"P-p-p-ppleaasee..." one of them whimpered as he dropped his weapon and curled on the floor in a foetal position shedding tears like a sobbing child. _Disgusting._ He thought to himself before disarming the other two by slicing their guns in half, each dropping their weapons, one grabbing a sword and trying to fight back, only for him to have his sword and head sliced in half horizontally in an futile attempt to block a slice.

The other however tried to enter a fist fight...why do they even bother...the haymaker he was about to throw was caught and his hand was slowly crushed, before his arm was roughly brought forward leading him to stumble forward with a scream of panic and pain, he was brought to one knee with a single kick before having his neck was snapped killing him instantly.

Letting the body fall to the floor limply, he stepped over to and crouched above the whimpering one, placing a single finger on his forehead, the man almost screamed but was silenced by a demonically whispered "Shhhhhhh...it's okay...death has not come for you yet, you may be assessed before your trial." The trembling man only whimpered more as he started the whispering of "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, please don't kill m-." He was then silenced by another whisper to his ear, fiery breathing clawing at him. "What is inside, I wonder, weapons?" The figure asks. "Y-yy-ye-yes." He shakily replies leading the figure to click his tongue a few times, glancing at the other two groups.

"How many of you are there?" The figure asked once more. "s-s-sseventeen at-t l-leas-t..." His voice cracked shakily, a pitiful man trembling in fear at what to him would be the angel of death itself. "Be silent, be still, your soul screams loud enough when it gets consumed by the blackness of the void." At this the figure elbowed the mans head with enough force to knock him out, nothing more, though his nose was bleeding. _H_ _e'll live...probably._

He kept to the shadows waiting for the two groups to join together, they were now a rules length each from each other. _T_ _hat'll do_. The figure pounced out from the dark cutting down two before they could react, not wasting any time, they each attacked him with blades and guns alike, a single bullet hit him, yet it seemed to disappear from existence, no reaction came from the impact at all, if anything, it helped him move faster as he sliced down three men and firing a single shot from what would seem like katana's, the bullet travelling out of the tip of the blade and into the head of one of the gun wielding men.

There were six left which would soon be cut down to four as two with swords charged only for them to realise he had two blades, when he blocked the strike from both of them, he seemingly stabbed them both in the head in a blur, but he actually shot them both in the head with quick succession, letting them fall to the floor, he looked at the last men standing.

He simply stood and stared at them. _Angst Haben._ Were the only words he needed to think before they each seemingly looked around and started shriveling up in Fear, he groaned a little and fell to one knee to catch his breathe, as usual the Semblance took its toll on him, but he had a mission. So he left each of them to curl up on the floor and attack each other, thinking that the other person was God only knows what kind of monster their minds made up.

Entering the warehouse to find three people, one, a rather burly and short bloke with a cigar in his mouth, puffing away, wearing attire that reminded him an awful lot of the Penguin from a comic book he couldn't remember. The other two, girls, one of African-american descent and the other of white-British descent, this became obvious as they both hopped down into the light with him and simply smirked at him, the first wearing a white dress with ice blue feathers and the other wearing a black dress with orange-red feathers. They both had their hair done up in a pony tail, the first with brown hair and the second had blonde hair, that, and they had glasses on, box framed reading glasses. _Why do people wear things so unsuitable for combat..._ He thought to himself, scowling at the lack of practicality EVERYONE seems to have. _I know I'm not one to talk but still._

"Well well well, looks like the freak decided to pay us a visit, show em' your tricks girls, make him Comfortable." Bob said with an emphasis on 'comfortable' and the stereotypical British evil laugh. The figure simply made a half sigh half growl before disappearing and instantly appearing in front of one of the girls launching her to the other side of the room, luckily enough she had her Aura up, but it would've taken a dent from the force of the hit. He turned in time to block multiple incoming strikes, fast ones, luckily enough the real blow he needed to look out for which would've been the round-house kick heading his direction was promptly caught and used to spin her before knocking her into a wall, making her growl in frustration.

He smirked under his mask, oh how he loved playing with his food. "Come on girls! Show me what I bludy pay you for!" As the woman in front of him was recovering, he could hear the click clack of high heels running on the stone floor. _You should wear something different._ He thought before dodging an ice spike being launched at him from the one in front of him. He let off a fake pout tone as he spoke. "At least tell me your name before we get intimate."

The one who launched an ice crystal at him proceeds to do so again, however, he dodge by leaning backwards, almost flat, whilst simultaneously dodging a fire ball from another direction, during this time, the two sisters met up. "Glace." "Sera." They say in unison, kinda freaky. He brought himself upright easily, dusting himself off in a mocking fashion before standing opposite both of them, the one of British-White decent was Glace and the one of African-American decent was Sera. _Definitely not ironic..._ He thought to himself sarcastically.

"Well I'd love to play more girls but I don't exactly have time, so we're going to make this quick." He said before he started to march forward with aggressive purpose. The two girls both simply smirked and charged at him, one using their legs primarily and the other, their fists, the result of this was a very large amount of concentration, nearly to the point of precognition. As a right hook was blocked he barely jumped over a leg sweep from the other. time that Glace needed to recover was time to try to take out Sera, which he used well, using the power of her left jab against her, he brought her forward and planted his knee into her gut firmly causing the air in her lungs to leave suddenly.

Before he could do anything else however a foot was about to kick him in the face, his hands were too busy but could be freed in a second, so he moved his head to the side and wrapped an arm around said leg and palm striked the side of her knee causing her to yelp, her Aura protecting her from major damage but it was still painful, after that he simply dropped the leg to start blocking angry and fiery punches from an enraged girl. What no one noticed was that the symbols on his trench coat were glowing brighter, so here's a minor demonstration of what they do.

The last punch Sera would manage to throw was caught and before she knew it she was kicked next to her half-twin...friend?...I don't know. All I know is that the figure was completely covered in fire, now he looked like the angel of death, cinders floating around him, the symbols grew brighter as he stared into the two girls souls making them instead of feeling heat, they felt a cold, clawed hand touch their minds, this brought them out of the stupor however and they got back to trying to fight him. Emphasis on trying.

As they each made contact they found their Aura depleting rapidly from strikes covered by smoke and flames, which really wasn't helping either, Sera had a basic immunity from the fire, Glace however, not so much. Before they knew it they were both heavily on the defensive, they could barely make out every strike he threw, whether or not it was a kick or a punch was also a mystery, but it became apparent that this was going to end soon as Glace's Aura shattered, a small knife impacted her gut causing both the girls eyes to widen until more and more knives started to impact her in all different places of the body, at the last knife she simply fell to the floor, the blood finally starting to leave her wounds.

At this Sera rolled over to her partner whilst dodging what was probably a kick, scooped her into into her own arms and just ran. The flames on his trenchcoat dying out, same as the smoke and cinders revealing a completely unharmed man, he knew each one of those knives hadn't impacted anything vital, the only way she would die is either through blood loss or infection in the wounds.

He looked up at the balcony where Bob was now running into the old office, locking the door behind him. He sighed wondering why they bother trying in the first place, it's a door, not a wall made of steel, like that would stop him either.

* * *

 **P.O.V. Switch**

"Shit! shit! shit!" Bob repeated to himself as he tried desperately to arm himself with the primitive double barrel shotgun in the desk, fumbling about with the ammunition, but his punisher didn't come from where he expected, instead he came through the office window behind him and was tossed into the safety glass at the other side of the room leading him to grunt from the pain he wasn't used to. "Alright! alright! Bludy hell! What do you want?! Guns, Money, Ammo, Anything?" He pleaded which only resulted him getting lifted off of his feet and slammed into the safety glass which looked really close to breaking right now.

"How about information." His demonic whisper filled his ears. "Information? Fuck I'd have given you information if you just came and bludy asked!" He heard a growl as he slammed into the safety glass again, his cigar leaving his mouth and dropping to the floor as the glass shattered. "What do you know about recent White Fang activity?" "Look, I don't keep tabs on everyone, you're not exactly a popular bloke in this town! and neither are they!" This time he was thrown into the old desk which was promptly smashed to pieces from the impact, before he was picked up again.

"Alright! Alright! Look! I don't know anything recent! The only thing I know is that they were the ones who were going for the deal tonight, but you've probably scared the buggers off!" At this he heard a snarl before being dropped. "I'd watch your tone." Was the last thing he heard from him before he seemingly disappeared in a plume of black smoke.

He got up and dusted himself off, grunting from the pain and proceeded to grab his zippo to light up another cigar. "I'm too old for this bollocks."

* * *

 **P.O.V. Switch**

"Woah." Was all that Ruby could think of right now. Or atleast, that's the only thing she could use to describe the situation. What she'd just watched would've been straight from an action movie, the Arbiter was all like waaaaah cha! *insert more generic kung fu noises here*. Though she wasn't able to see what happened inside, she knew it was awesome and that he won, since she saw two girls, one carrying the other, run out, the one carrying looked very distressed, likely because the one she was carrying got punched so hard they couldn't walk. What left her the most curious were the goons on the ground shriveled up, she knew he was scary, but not that scary, maybe it was his Semblance? _Fear...That would be cool._ Though she wondered how it would work.

She automatically spun around as she heard a dull metallic thud from behind her. "Care to tell me why you're up so late and why you're watching me work?" At this she beamed and blushed slightly, she'd been caught, though she had a feeling she'd been caught long before he arrived to let himself be known. "I uhhhhh...was uhhhhh..." While she was attempting to make an excuse as he sat next to her, barely able to make out his outline, besides his eyes, red symbols and the red on his mask, the lights around the warehouse helped a little also.

* * *

 **P.O.V. Switch**

 _Okay, let's see what excuses she has to come up with that I might be able to use later in life._ He thought to himself as he looked at Ruby, who partially reminded him of himself, brought into Beacon at a younger age because she showed promise. What promise though, he was sure he would see soon.

"I was out thinking and I heard gunfire so I came to take a look." Ruby said honestly, likely because she couldn't think of an excuse, so he believed her, for now, Ruby didn't seem like the type to think on her own but honestly he's seen stranger. Much stranger. Hell, he's lived much stranger.

He sighed. "Very well then, I'm done here and you should be getting to bed." At this Ruby pouted, her cheeks puffing up. He simply smiled tiredly behind his mask and poked her nose before standing up again. "Come on, I'll get you a box of cookies." At the mention of the words 'box of cookies' Ruby was standing with him in a flash of rose petals.

"If you can keep up." Ruby tilted her head before she realized what he meant, he started running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop as sirens were going off in the distance signifying that the police were on their way, not to be outdone, Ruby kept pace behind him which he was honestly impressed about, his free-running and gymnastics skills had taken a few years to perfect.

It didn't take long for him to reach his destination with Ruby hot on his heels, he turned to her and keeled so he could look her straight in the eyes. "You can't tell anyone about what you're going to see, okay? Can I trust you with this secret?" At this Ruby nodded enthusiastically. "Good." He said before opening the door to a café, which she followed him into, he went through the back and upstairs where it was like she just walked into a wonder land.

* * *

 **P.O.V. Switch**

Ruby's mouth was almost drooling at the sight of so many weapons, explosives and much, much more, even if the place was untidy, that didn't mean it was unkempt, there was just alot here and to be honest this is what her home would probably look like anyway. She didn't care either way, but what she did notice was his mask starting to fold into the back of his head, she didn't see much besides his hair, which was black with metallic silvery white ends every so often, she wondered why. _Highlights?_ she wondered, but he wandered into what she thought was the kitchen before she could ask.

She sat on the couch which had a coffee table, which would be more accurately described as a weapons bench, there were blueprints for different designs she didn't recognize, in addition to bits of specialized equipment made for all sorts of guns of melee weapons. One of the blueprints caught her eye, it looked like Crescent Rose with seemingly no design changes besides some notes commenting on...her fighting style? and how to improve the weapon based on her style? That's odd.

She looked a little more and found Blueprints for each of the Teams weapons besides one. Which was odd, until she realized that he'd destroyed that very weapon, until she saw what looked like an older version hanging on the wall. "Wha?..." Was Ruby's initial reaction before a box of cookies landed next to her, at this she promptly looked at the man leaning in the doorway, his tired features were evident along with his almost deathly pale skin, besides the black lines coming from his right eye, which was as usual, red, she assumed this was all make up but couldn't be sure because of how real it looked, his facial features reminded her strongly of someone else, it was an odd feeling that she wouldn't soon be forgetting.

He sat next to Ruby and ran his hand through his hair, rubbing his...Faunus cat ears..."You're a Faunus?" Ruby asked surprised, he smiled. "Yeah, they ache when I have my mask on, it annoys the ever living daylights out of me." His voice was no longer demonic, but still a little deep, until a he cleared his throat, then he sounded much younger than he looked. "I'm surprised the cookies aren't gone yet." He said with audible amusement, Ruby unconsciously started opening the box of cookies and munching on them, staring at his kitty ears, which twitched every so often.

"Where's your girlfriend?" She nudged his arm, at this he smiled a little. "Away, she'll be here soon though, although it's more like I'm away, it doesn't matter, she'll arrive within the next few weeks." At this she tilted her head in wonder. "What about your arm?" she asked. "Hm?" "Your arm, you said it was injured..." She trailed off and the punched him straight in the nose. "Ow...that was for knocking me out." At this he laughed, which Ruby eventually joined in on. "My arm is fine thank you, you'll be surprised at what I can handle and I apologise for knocking you unconscious." She knew he was lying about the 'what he can handle' part but decided not to question it, he looked fine, it still took her a while to realise she was staring at his cat ears still.

"Ruby...you can poke them after you've washed your hands." He said with a smile, at this she was brought out of her daydream...nightdream?...her cheeks turning Rosie **(Pun intended.)** "Sorry." she said shyly, at this he poked her nose and pointed at a door which she assumed was the bathroom, washing her hands and stepping back into the room, what she saw made her eyes widen in both confusion and wonder, with a bit of concern.

He'd removed his trenchcoat and was now in a vest made of kevlar, but it was his right arm that interested her the most, it was almost completely black, as in, pitch black, it stopped at around his wrist like a spreading virus, or vines, he looked concerned but decided not to question it as he put his trenchcoat back on and stood up. "Ruby, let's go." he said with a slightly raised voice, obviously not realising she was out of the bathroom before he looked at her and smiled warmly, the kind of smile that could make anyone's day no matter how bad it'd been.

"I'll grab your cookies and we'll go." She nodded. "Can I poke them?" At this he chuckled before sitting back down, she promptly took the chance and instantly appeared in front of him and began scratching his ear, after a few seconds she could hear a slight vibration coming from his chest, at this she giggled like the school girl she is.

After about a minute of continuous scratching and purring, much to her amusement, he looked at her and said "It's time to go." She sighed sadly before yawning. "That emphasized my point." He said before picking up the box of cookies and leaving with Ruby to Beacon Academy, during the time they were walking to the shuttle terminal, she hadn't noticed the mask had folded over his head and face again.

She said thank you and goodbye as they went the silent and sneaky way, through the window, which for Ruby was fun, she'd never hugged anyone besides Yang so tight before as he rapidly climbed up Beacon, almost too fast for her to process what was happening, thankfully though, the cookies were intact, that's all that mattered to her.

She gave a small wave and whispered "Thank You!" one last time before going to bed, he smiled a little, closing the window silently before leaping off the side of Beacon...for the second time in one week. He knew it would be a long day tomorrow, for them at least, he gave himself a generic evil chuckle before realising he needed to slow down otherwise he would turn into a thick paste on the courtyard of Beacon.

* * *

 **Hey everyone, I know this is a shorter chapter, but atleast it's an update, I've been lucky to use this goddamn laptop thing recently...I sound like Zaeed Massani...**

 **As you can probably tell I'm a very unhappy person right now, this is because I've got business coming through like no tomorrow, stretching my administrative abilities to their limits, one of my friends is purposefully trying to get us into a fight since he found out we go to the same gym to spar, which is annoying me to no end, I sprained my hand because a guy moved his head out of the way before I could punch him, so I punched a concrete wall...also meaning I would've punched him incorrectly..which I am further scolding myself for...my writing and typing skills have taken a blow from having one of my hands partially disabled to...I'm not having a good amount of luck am I?**

 **Luckily enough I've got a month or so away from college so I'll have more time for writing for you guys and I now get to play Stellaris which I will be playing the ever living feck out of, excuse my Irish. I'm sorry it took so long for me to get something so small out but it was the best I could do for the moment.**

 **So, if you like this chapter be sure to follow or favorite for more and don't forget to review, it always brightens up my day, if you don't a facehugger will scare the goddamn living daylights out of you! I'm kidding...But really!**

 **I'll see you guys in the next chapter, have a good one aaaaaaaaand goodnight, goodday, goodmorrow...goodyear...whatever...see ya later!**


	6. First lesson and how to bribe Ruby

**Hi guys, yeah it's been a while but I haven't had much time to write considering work, my brain neighbor wanting to do things and YADADADA you know, life stuff, I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _Thoughts._

 **"Someone who isn't there but is speaking to someone...like telepathy or something."**

 **Time-skip or location or P.O.V. switch or something.**

"Normal Speech and SHOUTING."

 **(Making an authors note during fic.)**

* * *

 **"You're weak."**

"And so are you."

Black cracks spread through the white ground, like vines growing over ancient ruins as Cann fell to a black abyss below him. He opened his eyes to find himself standing alone on smooth stone ground, barely able to see his feet as a dark fog surrounded him, making him unable to see as a spotlight of white constantly followed his actions.

He started walking slowly, unafraid of the smoke that plagued his surroundings, he was used to the darkness from the eternity he once spent in it.

"This is pointless." He said to himself before pausing and scanning his surroundings for the source of a certain sound.

High heels.

His eyes widened, only one person he knew wore high heels.

"Cinder?"

He asked nothing, it was more of a whisper, still searching for the source as it seemed to be coming from every random direction.

"CINDER!"

He shouted almost in desperation, letting the echo die down before growling as he ran through the darkness in his original direction, the ground cracking under each of his footfalls, the sound of high heels walking on stone still sounding in a beat, like a clock.

 **"Your weakness is starting to show Grimm."**

"Do not call me that! I am not one of your slaves!"

He said defiantly before his head began to hurt like he had been hit by a sledgehammer and continuously by a jackhammer, to the point he fell to his knees, blood dripping to the floor below him, he ignored it along with the slightly empty feeling on the inside.

"This is only serves to annoy me further."

He said as he began to stand back up to his feet, despite his dizziness and fading vision.

 **"You're getting weaker, _Grimm._ "**

She put extra emphasis on the word 'Grimm'. His vision began to grow white as if staring at a cars headlights travelling towards him, he soon found himself standing amongst burning buildings in what he thought is downtown Vale.

"Why do you show me this?...What do you hope to accomplish?..."

The place is completely destroyed, buildings were on fire or in ruin, Grimm were marching about freely, corpses of human and faunus alike strewn along the ground, or what was left of them, if you could even tell what species they were in the first place.

He started to walk forwards without willing his body to do so, he came around a corner to see Cinder sitting by a statue with a girl by her side, laying on her back, likely due to injures sustained earlier, they were both exhausted.

"Cinder..."

He whispered to himself before the girl in her lap groaned and sat up slightly, gasping as her goldish amber eyes looked in his direction, she was a young faunus, no older than 8 or 9 years old with tiny little horns on her head, a bull faunus, with red hair that barely went past her neck, a few black bits in her hair that reminds him of the girl he'd met last night, oddly enough, but also someone he could do with punching right now.

Cinder wears a dark-red, off-the-shoulders, v-neck mini-dress with yellow designs. The dress ends in an upside-down triangular tail in the back, ending just above the knees. The blue feather that was usually there, likely lost in battle.

There is a baseball diamond-shaped keyhole on the dress' upper back at the same height as her chest. The sleeves end in a triangle shape, which are wrapped around her middle finger, with the gold designs of the sleeve taking over at the wrists.

She wears a gold loop earring with a tiny shard of a black dust crystal dangling from it on her right ear, same as ever. She has dark, glass, high-heeled shoes and a damaged jeweled anklet on her right leg.

Her dress is partially torn up mostly at her gut area and she had a few bruises and dirt on her, indicating a fight and a recent one, or multiple draining ones.

"Cinder...look."

He heard the child say as Cinder looked in his direction, barely able to stand and keep her expression of shock, before his body started to involuntarily jog towards them, at this he could only gasp in shock inside his mind as he saw his hands.

His hands along with his arms had turned completely black, bits of white bone sticking out of parts of his arms, white claws that burned brightly as if dust were infused with them and that's when he realised, he wasn't going over to them both to greet them.

He tried to will his body to stop as his speed grew, every fireball or arrow fired at him only served to make it all seem to go faster, as he reached them both, he...killed them...with his bare hands, mauling them both until he started clawing them, their flesh, muscle and bone alike shredded and burned like paper and he felt...joy?...Why would he feel joy?

 **"This is what you will become, Grimm."**

"No."

Those were the only words he managed to stutter out as he stared aimlessly at the sight before him, blood, charred and burnt flesh coated his hands, innards of both his lover and an innocent child strewn around the place.

"I'm not a monster."

 **"You are a Grimm and you will kneel eventually, like the rest."**

"I kneel to no man."

He could hear the dark and demonic chuckle all around him as he heard someone behind him, he instantly turned around to find the last person he expected, Professor Ozpin, with his usual stoic expression and a cup of tea or coffee.

"Wake up."

His head started to hurt as he growled and put his hands to his head, kneeling as his body started to crack like a vase, everything felt like it was on fire.

 **"I will break you."**

"Sh-ut up...shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!"

Everything turned white again, giving a roar of both pain and defiance as he opened his eyes to see Glynda staring at him.

* * *

"So glad that you could come back to reality Arbiter."

She said in her usual scolding tone with a hint of concern.

He soon found out why. He's in a combat stance with Guilt in his hands. (One of his katanas.) His heart sounded like it was trying to destroy the rest of his vital organs.

He looked around as he started to slowly calm down and put his blade away, twirling it a few times before he did so. He was assisting in Combat class, standing just outside the arena, students sitting in their seats that he recognised to be teams CRDL, JNPR and RWBY.

Some were snickering while others either wore a scowl or a look of concern.

"Reality is preferable to my mind Ms. Goodwitch."

He spoke low enough so that only she could hear, his voice modulator still active as usual, at this her frown became evident for a split second before turning back to her usual teacher demeanor.

"Excuse me for a moment." He said with a slight bow before exiting the classroom.

His mask folded up as he entered the males restroom and promptly began splashing his face with cold water, looking at himself in the mirror.

His eyes were bloodshot and the black on his skin had spread more along with the silvery whites of his hair, it made him feel old. He sighed and turned off the tap before pulling down slightly on the skin below his right eye to find that the sclera in the eye was starting to turn completely black.

Now he was contemplating telling Ozpin about his worsening condition...and that he needed to hurry the fuck up with his research.

He was starting to get the dreams whilst awake...that isn't good. After he'd left the temple he'd have them once every so often, but as he spent time with Cinder and that dust crystal, he started getting them more and more often, eventually getting to the point he started getting them every single night and now during the day, every dream was mostly different but each had the same theme, seeing people die was old hat for him, but feeling pleasure killing those he loved and those he felt obligated to protect? That made him shiver slightly at the implications.

The dreams weren't real, but they had a physical effect on his body somehow, he'd wake up with a new burn or a new gash or something, so you can imagine the amount of scars on his skin that weren't from his physical 'conditioning' as he called it, others would call it self-torture, he didn't care, it had worked.

If it worked physically why wouldn't it be true with emotions? Emotions can be controlled same as his body. Right?

Sighing once again he dried his face and let the mask form over his head once again, giving an annoyed huff as he felt his second pair of ears be uncomfortably flattened, AGAIN. He stepped out of the restroom and back into the amphitheater which was currently being used for Combat Class, the moment he stepped in, a match had finished and he received stares, all of them mixed, but he was used to it as a child.

"Students, as you can see, Mr. Arcs aura has dropped into the red. In a tournament-style duel, this would indicate that Jaune is no longer fit for battle and the official may call the match."

Everyone had their own reactions to this.

"Mr. Arc it's been weeks now. Please refer to your scroll during combat. Gauging your aura will help you decide when it's appropriate to attack, or when it's better to move to a more...defensive strategy. We wouldn't want you gobbled up by a Beowolf now, would we?"

That was as close to humour as you'll ever get from Glynda Goodwitch, certified by The Arbiter 2016.

He noticed the one who won say "Speak for yourself." Which put him squarely at the top of Cann's arrogant prick list, first entry to.

"Welcome back Arbiter."

Goodwitch spoke, at this everyone turned to his direction...again.

"Thank you."

Was his immediate response before Glynda turned her attention to her class.

"Since this is the Arbiters first day for his visit of Beacon academy, I'm going to give a rare opportunity."

At this he audibly sighed and groaned, knowing exactly what was going to happen, she always liked picking on him back when he attended classes in this very place, even when he wasn't attending Beacon. He could remember the dents on a steel bar from when he'd bang his head against it continuously, he wondered if they're still there, before he was brought back to reality.

"With the Arbiters permission, a few will be selected to spar against him and he will provide you with immediate feedback, is this acceptable?"

She turned to him with her still stoic look but behind that face he could see the amusement, her eyes gave it away. _Goddamn you Goodwitch, I swear I'll get Ozpin to...ground you or something!...though he'd probably just stand there and smirk...everyone hates me...except Oobleck and Port...who am I kidding, that's worse!_ He thought to himself.

"Of course Professor, so long as the students are up for it."

His reply was respectful as he turned to look at the students who each looked excited, worried or smug at the idea.

Yang instantly raised her hand.

"I volunteer!"

She nearly shouted her excitement, though her grin gave away that she was REALLY hoping this would happen and that she is seriously looking forward to this. Probably too much. Maybe a little bit sociopathic...

"Very well, Yang Xiao Long, you will fight with..."

She paused for effect, much to Yang's annoyance. Or is she pouting? He couldn't tell from this distance.

The screen came up with Yang and...Lie Ren...

"Lie Ren, Yang Xiao Long, can you both step up to the arena please."

They both do so, one obviously more excited and angry than the other.

"How's the arm?"

Yang teased with a smirk, Ren had no reaction besides a slight look of confusion.

"Fully healed, no thanks to you."

"Allow me to break all of your bones this time!"

"Maybe if I let you like last time."

Yangs grin got wider as she got into stance with Ember Celica at the ready, Ren also getting into stance with his Stormflower at the ready, Cann simply stood there putting one foot slightly forward, feeling the tension build as the sound of drums started playing in his ears and the arena darkened.

"Huh?"

Was Yangs reaction, it's Canns' turn to grin behind his mask.

"You will both be fighting with limited vision."

Glynda announced, the arena was only partially lit up, Canns eyes adjusted quickly to where everything was dark. _Thank you night vision._ He thought to himself. Yang was still smirking and Ren remained unflinching, Cann greatly respected this.

He let out an audible and demonic chuckle as he stepped into the dark, seemingly disappearing.

"You sure you want them fighting a superior enemy that they cannot see Professor?"

His question was meant to anger the enemy, but it only angered one of them, I'll give you three guesses.

"The match begins...now."

"Go Yang!"

"Break his legs Ren!"

 _Their class mates are cheering them on, how cute._ he thought as he silently gave off a small but evil smile similar to what Adam used to do. Yang started firing Ember Celica at different areas of the dark, illuminating those areas temporarily, Ren however remained still, eyes closed, he smiled wider knowing that he was attempting to sense his aura. _Good luck._ He thought to himself.

"Yang...the time you broke my arm, I actually have to thank you for that."

Yang smirked.

"Well I'm going to do it again!"

She said eagerly, at this she heard a chuckle as a response that originated from seemingly everywhere, she was dragged away from the darkness's edge by Ren, much to Yang's annoyance.

"Hey! What gives?"

"He's drawing you to the dark where his advantage is."

Ren said calmly as Yang and Ren were back to back to the slowly encroaching walls of darkness.

"Okay...how do we draw him out then?"

"I don't know."

"Well that's a big help."

Yang said sarcastically before being punched in the gut by a shadow faster than she could process, leading her to fire a round to where she was hit from, only to find nothing reacting, she growled, which was replied with a chuckle again seemingly coming from every direction as usual. _Always smoke and mirrors with this guy._ Yang thought sardonically.

"Won't come to play? Fine."

He said in his usual demonic voice, rushing Yang and before she could react, she was flung past a surprised Ren who only just managed to block a single blade, watching as the trench coat of the thing in front of him turn from black to white like ink filling paper.

"Well done."

He complimented before kicking him next to a only just recovered Yang, as they both got their bearings they both nodded to each other before attacking simultaneously, Ren firing as many shots as he could at him so Yang could try and break through his defense.

Cann managed to use Guilt to block the bullets headed his direction whilst walking backwards, as Yang got closer however he drew Innocence to block bullets whilst keeping Yang busy with Guilt, unfortunately for him, he couldn't keep this up much longer so he changed it up a little.

Stunning Yang as she threw a punch, he ran at Ren who only just managed to block his attack but at the cost of his weapons as they left his grip from the sheer force, but Cann also lost his weapons, that didn't matter to him though.

Then again, he forgot a rule, never underestimate your opponent. As he was about to enter hand to hand combat with Ren he catches a fist from Yang, roundhouse kicking her head and ducking enough so that Ren's palm strike would hit Yang squarely in the chest sending her back a bit, though Ren was fast enough to land a hit at Cann's head cracking the mask slightly since he didn't expect this attack, he couldn't defend as well from it.

Ren then attempted to capitalize on this and swiftly attempted to launch a fast combo of strikes, only for Cann to parry or block each of them, even though he was on the defensive, he thought of a plan.

As Ren was about to end the flurry of attacks and begin a new set of them he managed to get a kick behind the knee in and spin kick Ren in the face sending him spiraling to the ground, Cann was barely prepared for the attacks that would come from Yang, time seemed to slow down as he lent backwards and proceeded to use the momentum to cartwheel backwards.

As he got to his feet he drew his shot-saws and started firing them at a recovering Ren rather than a charging Yang, much to everyone's confusion. As Yang got to optimum range, the bandages under the sleeve of his arms connected to the handle of both shot-saws he started using them like a flail to keep his distance from Yang whilst keeping up an impenetrable barrier, but of course, that doesn't really work with the master of punching all the things, Yang.

Yang managed to find the right moments to knock the shot-saws off course and into the arena barrier making them lose their motion and almost stop, giving Yang the prime opportunity to strike, if she could see him, the last thing she saw of him were his eyes before she started hearing distant whispers of someone calling her name as she could no longer see anything besides black, when she looked at herself she could see herself perfectly fine.

It was a little too late to realise her opponent was attacking her until she felt a very large foot kick her straight in the rib cage, very fast and very hard launching her next to a barely standing Ren who helped up Yang, Ren being very close to getting knocked out of the fight. She was getting a little angry.

"GET OUT HERE AND FIGHT ME!"

Just a little.

Her hair was starting to glow as her eyes turned Crimson.

"I'm right here."

A demonic voice said in a teasing tone, directly ahead of her she could see half of Cann step into the light, at which she grinned and charged, only for her to run into a flurry of rapid blade swipes that she didn't have time to block, so she was forced backwards again, her aura drained a little.

"You lucky son..of...a..."

A lock of hair started to float past her face...then another...and another...and it was at this point as the fourth lock started to float in the air like a leaf, Cann knew, he fucked up.

"You...BASTARD!"

She charged at him full sprint, using blasts from Ember Celica to speed her up, she really did look like a really pissed off Pheonix right now, very...fiery...Unfortunately for Cann the first punch Yang threw sort of appeared in front of his face, not giving him enough time to react, so half his mask was shattered to pieces, off his face, but the second punch was caught and dragged forward, bringing Yang straight into his knee, but this trick wouldn't work twice on Yang, she tensed her gut so only part of the wind was knocked out of her, she had enough air left to block the kick to her head.

But not enough to notice the sweeping kick and the resulting heavy right hook into her chest which felt like it hit harder than anything she ever felt before.

"Arbiter that's quiet enough."

Sounded Glynda as Yang stared up into the red and partially black eye and face of Cann with a very curious expression, the anger now fading away being replaced with wonderment and concern at what she was seeing, leading Cann to cover his face and step into the shadows.

"The Arbiter wins the match, is there anything you have to say Arbiter?" Glynda asked.

"Yes, you both fight well, Ren, your reaction time in close quarters is impeccable and your quick thinking bought you both an extra thirty seconds, your knowledge in cqc and tactics was enough to keep me delayed for a period of time. Yang, whilst you hit hard enough, you run into the enemy almost without thinking, it is very easy to manipulate you on the battlefield. Grimm aren't the only things Hunters and Huntresses face out there, people as experienced as me will easily be able to exploit Ren's frailty and Yangs easily manipulated mind. I managed to separate you both eventually, keep together in these scenarios, notice that the moment I divided you, it became easier to deal with both of you. It's important when facing someone who lives in the dark such as myself to stay in the light, it hurts their eyes and negates their advantage, as Ren said wisely."

After Cann gave his lecture he started to walk away, covering the exposed part of his face. Not long after that, the class was dismissed.

* * *

"That. Was. Awesome!"

Was Ruby's reaction to when Yang met up with her Team again.

"Keep the Arbiters advice in mind."

Weiss said with a surprisingly not as icey tone.

"He still owes me for my hair though."

Yang said with a obviously unhappy voice which was instantly replaced by curiosity.

"His face was weird." **(Thanks -_-)**

They all instantly looked at Yang.

"We saw that his mask had been damaged but you saw his face?"

Weiss asked before Blake was the one to instantly ask.

"What did he look like?"

Yang thought about it for a few seconds whilst Ruby tried to keep herself quiet.

"Well, it was strange, his eye was kinda weird, the white parts were starting to turn black from the looks of it and the eye was red like a Grimms, it wasn't a contact lens or anything it was definitely real, some of his skin around the eye was turning black and ran down his cheek, almost like it was spreading like a virus or something, silvery parts were also spreading through his hair which I noticed was black, pale as snow where his skin isn't black to, have to wonder if he's ill or something."

Ruby was doing her best to keep her mouth shut, Weiss was slightly confused and Blake looked distant and slightly concerned, before she turned to Ruby.

"Ruby, are you okay?"

"Mhmm."

The rest of the Team raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure?..."

Yang asked with slight concern for her sister.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhmhmhmhmhmmm."

She looked like her face was going to explode with how red it was going.

"Ruby..."

Weiss said in her accusatory tone before Ruby let out a breath then sucked one in.

"IsawhimwithouthismaskonafterIfollowedhimwhilsthewasbeatingupabunchofbadguysandhe'sactuallyafaunusandhelookskindacute!"

At this everyone raised their eyebrows and had their own reactions.

"He's a Faunus?"

"How cute and is he fit?"

"What did he look like?"

 **(wait, wait they understood that?)**

Ruby became flustered and started stuttering before Weiss said.

"It doesn't matter, it's lunch and I'm hungry."

At which point Blakes stomach growled very loudly leading them all to look at her as she blushed and disappeared, they each followed Blake into the cafeteria.

* * *

During the wait to grab lunch, Blake found half of her favorite meal was gone and whilst at her table with her teammates and Team JNPR, she stared aimlessly in the distance whilst Nora was spouting the normal 'Nora talk' as Blake and pretty much everyone else called it. But what she then began looking at was a certain someone with a large dish of Her favourite meal...which she couldn't help but scowl deeply at, before turning her attention back to the table and her book.

This only lasted a couple of minutes however as she heard different ways that Cardin Winchester was bullying Jaune which lead her focus to be planted on him, same as everyone else, but Jaune was attempting to laugh it off, and failing quiet miserably.

"I didn't land far from the school."

"We had to pick you up from the centre of the forest with Professor Port." Weiss said with an obvious tone of annoyance.

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can ask." Pyrrha said with her usual concerned and sympathetic look.

Nora then blurts out a plan that Blake and Yang would quiet happily agree to right now. "Oooo! We'll break his legs!" Her ecstatic grin was ever so slightly disconcerting for some.

"Guys, really, it's fine! Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to me; he's a jerk to everyone." At this they all looked over to see Team CRDL and a rabbit Faunus be the source of laughs and cries of pain.

"Ow! That hurts! Please, stop..." The faunus grimaced as she stops struggling.

"Told you they were real!" Cardin said boastfully.

"What a-"

THWACK

* * *

and suddenly the boy was launched to the other side of the room by a not very happy looking person wearing a white trench coat that looked like it was slightly on fire. The man turned to Cardin who instantly dropped the Faunus, cowering beneath the gaze of the eyes of one far superior to him, every inch of cockiness leaving him, being replaced by a cold dead feeling inside as from his perspective, everything began to melt away.

He's lifted easily by the scruff of the neck by something that didn't seem human in his eyes, this was no man or animal, it was something darker. He could hear the voice of a demon call out to him. "You, will never, Ever, discriminate against us again for so long as you and your descendants live, Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?" Cardin hastily nodded as fast as he could as he was dropped into his seat, the bench shattering as he landed on it, the world seemed to turn to normal in an instant making him wonder if he was dragged into another dimension entirely for a few eternities.

What he didn't notice was the fact his face had landed in the cake in front of him making more than a few people in the area laugh including the bunny faunus he was picking on. Cann turned to her and asked in his normal voice that no one else could hear. "Are you okay?"

Velvet was more than surprised that such a soothing and ironically velvety voice would come from someone who could appear and sound so demonic, have the voice that could brighten even the darkest of days. A light blush entered her features as she replied nervously. "Y-yes, thank you." She smiled a little, the bottom half of his mask seemed to fold to reveal a warm smile, at which her blush further solidified.

"What's your name?" He asked.

"Ummm...V-velvet, Velvet Scarlatina." She smiled warmly at him at which she could barely see the edges of his smile grow as he kneeled to her her height.

* * *

Blake could not hear a word that they were saying and her lip reading skills were not up to par, which made her slightly frustrated, she wasn't one for eavesdropping but she wanted to know who the Arbiter is, he knew ALOT about her and quiet frankly it made her a little insecure. Eventually he noticed his mask fold back up to its normal self and he escorted the bunny who she knew to be Velvet back to Team CFVY before heading over in this direction.

He noticed her direct stare and returned it, but it wasn't neutral or anything negative, but rather it's a stare that is more suited to 'Oh hi, nice to see you.' Before he cleared his throat grabbing everyone's attention.

"Team JNPR, your team will be scheduled for training regimen the beginning of next week." At which all of them besides Nora who was eating pancakes drenched in syrup, nodded an affirmative.

"Good day, students." He said in his usual demonic monotone.

This however sparked Blake, Yang and Weiss to stare at Ruby as he left making her wince slightly and make her want to curl up into a ball at the stares.

"Uhhhhh...guys?" Jaune asked the other members of Team RWBY.

"So, you were about to tell me how fit he looks?" Yang asked with a slight smirk.

"Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, Ruby, you saw what he looks like?!" Jaune asked with a mixture of surprise, shock and anticipation, the previous conversation obviously leaving the mind of everyone on the table.

Ruby then pulled her hood over her head to hide herself from the world. "Yes."

Nora was nearly halfway across the table before Ren poked a part of her neck making Nora tense up and fall over, twitching every so often. After an awkward silence everyone turned their attention back to Ruby who had disappeared, they looked at the entrance to find the door slowly closing from where Ruby had run away.

"Not fair!" Yang shouted as everyone else sighed sadly.

"Just give her some time, we might've just embarrassed her too much." Weiss spoke leading everyone to look at her.

"Did I just hallucinate or did Weiss just say something nice?" Yang asked seemingly no one.

* * *

"So they wanna know what I look like huh?"

"Yeah! They kinda...Really...wanna know." Ruby lowered her face a little.

The two of them were sat on top of one of the many flat roofs of Beacon, the place may look like a jagged topped fantasy castle, but there really are some places with beautiful views.

"Hm...Do you want to tell them?"

"Yeah! of course! You're big news, no one knows what you look like, they're my friends so I feel I've gotta tell them, but at the same time I...I don't wanna upset you, you know?"

At this Cann looked into the distance and smiled slightly.

"I tell you what Ruby..."

"Mmm?"

"How about, every week I buy you a full 12 box of cookies and I give you a lot of help with Crescent Rose with a brand new modification." Cann smirked slightly, in his head he was giving an evil laugh.

"You mean those cookies you gave me when I went to your place and what kind of modification?" She had a business woman look on her face, which made him chuckle.

"The kind that will increase the recoil on Crescent Rose enough to make you faster but not enough to tear your arm off whilst you don't have her in Scythe form and yes the cookies I first gave you." She was seriously contemplating this.

"Make it 20 a week and you've got a deal." Cann laughed audibly at this which Ruby smiled and gave a short giggle at.

"Deal." He held out his hand and Ruby shook it, with a surprisingly good grip.

"Good grip you got there."

"Yeah! I drink Milk!"

This caused Cann to laugh loudly as he fell back leading Ruby to glare daggers at him.

"I'm sorry! Ahahahaha." Ruby then crossed her arms.

"35 a week."

"Nope, too late, we shook on it."

"Come on!" She gave him her best puppy dog eyes which he crumbled under. **(Pun intended.)**

"I'll buy you 15 now."

"Deal."

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter.**


End file.
